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Twenty percent U.S. growth: a claim without a modern precedent

9/1/2026

Twenty percent annual GDP growth is the number President Trump says the United States could reach, a rate the country has matched only once since World War II.

The claim arrived alongside an argument against Federal Reserve rate hikes, even as inflation sits above the central bank's 2% target.

| Metric | Level | Status | |---|---|---| | Trump growth projection | 20% | Projected; conditional | | Fed inflation target | 2% | Reported threshold | | Current U.S.

inflation | Above 2% | Reported | | Postwar instances of 20% U.S. GDP growth | 1 | Historical | The postwar count is one.

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