Jimmy Carter was elected as the 39th President of the United States on January 20, 1977, and served until January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, was elected president in 1976 after beating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford. His administration came to an end when he was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.
Carter took office amid a time known as “stagflation,” in which the economy was plagued by high inflation and weak development. His fiscal policy focused on decreasing deficits and government spending in order to control inflation. In response to widespread energy worries throughout the 1970s, his administration enacted a national energy policy aimed at encouraging energy conservation and the development of alternative energy sources. Regardless of Carter’s initiatives, the country was hit by an energy crisis in 1979, followed by a recession in 1980. Carter attempted to change the country’s welfare, health-care, and tax systems, but he was generally unsuccessful, owing in part to strained ties with Congress.
Carter reoriented US foreign policy toward a focus on human rights after taking office in the midst of the Cold War. He followed in the footsteps of his predecessors’ conciliatory Cold War policies, improving relations with China and conducting further Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviet Union. He assisted in the preparation of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in an effort to end the ArabIsraeli conflict. Carter ensured the eventual transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama through the TorrijosCarter Treaties. He abandoned his conciliatory views toward the Soviet Union after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and began a period of military build-up and diplomatic pressure, including pulling out of the Moscow Olympics.
Several major crises, notably the Iran hostage crisis and economic stagnation, marred Carter’s final fifteen months in office. In the 1980 Democratic primaries, Ted Kennedy, a famous liberal Democrat who opposed Carter’s resistance to a national health-care system, competed against him. Carter rallied in late 1979 and early 1980, buoyed by public support for his initiatives, to defeat Kennedy and win re-nomination. Carter ran against Ronald Reagan, a Republican former governor of California, in the general election. Reagan was victorious in a landslide. Carter is generally regarded as a below-average president by historians and political scientists, but his post-presidency humanitarian initiatives around the world have boosted his popularity.
What caused the recession of the 1980s?
The 1981-82 recession was the greatest economic slump in the United States since the Great Depression, prior to the 2007-09 recession. Indeed, the over 11% unemployment rate attained in late 1982 remains the postwar era’s pinnacle (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis). During the 1981-82 recession, unemployment was widespread, but manufacturing, construction, and the auto industries were especially hard hit. Despite the fact that goods manufacturers accounted for only 30% of overall employment at the time, they lost 90% of their jobs in 1982. Manufacturing accounted for three-quarters of all job losses in the goods-producing sector, with unemployment rates of 22% and 24%, respectively, in the home building and auto manufacturing industries (Urquhart and Hewson 1983, 4-7).
The economy was already in poor health prior to the slump, with unemployment hovering at 7.5 percent following a recession in 1980. Tight monetary policy in an attempt to combat rising inflation sparked both the 1980 and 1981-82 recessions. During the 1960s and 1970s, economists and politicians thought that raising inflation would reduce unemployment, a tradeoff known as the Phillips Curve. In the 1970s, the Fed used a “stop-go” monetary strategy, in which it alternated between combating high unemployment and high inflation. The Fed cut interest rates during the “go” periods in order to loosen the money supply and reduce unemployment. When inflation rose during the “stop” periods, the Fed raised interest rates to lessen inflationary pressure. However, as inflation and unemployment rose concurrently in the mid-1970s, the Phillips Curve tradeoff proved unstable in the long run. While unemployment was on the decline towards the end of the decade, inflation remained high, hitting 11% in June 1979. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).
Because of his anti-inflation ideas, Paul Volcker was chosen chairman of the Federal Reserve in August 1979. He had previously served as president of the New York Fed, where he had expressed his displeasure with Fed actions that he believed contributed to rising inflation expectations. In terms of future economic stability, he believes that rising inflation should be the Fed’s top concern: “It is what is going to give us the most troubles and cause the biggest recession” (FOMC transcript 1979, 16). He also thought the Fed had a credibility problem when it comes to controlling inflation. The Fed had proved in the preceding decade that it did not place a high priority on maintaining low inflation, and the public’s belief that this conduct would continue would make it increasingly difficult for the Fed to drive inflation down. “Failure to continue the fight against inflation now would simply make any subsequent effort more difficult,” he said (Volcker 1981b).
Instead of focusing on interest rates, Volcker altered the Fed’s policy to aggressively target the money supply. He chose this strategy for two reasons. To begin with, rising inflation made it difficult to determine which interest rate targets were suitable. Due to the expectation of inflation, the nominal interest rates the Fed targeted could be relatively high, but the real interest rates (that is, the effective interest rates after adjusting for inflation) could still be quite low. Second, the new policy was intended to show the public that the Federal Reserve was serious about keeping inflation low. The anticipation of low inflation was significant, as present inflation is influenced in part by future inflation forecasts.
Volcker’s initial efforts to reduce inflation and inflationary expectations were ineffective. The Carter administration’s credit-control scheme, which began in March 1980, triggered a severe recession (Schreft 1990). As unemployment rose, the Fed relented, reverting to the “stop-go” practices that the public had grown accustomed to. The Fed tightened the money supply further in late 1980 and early 1981, causing the federal funds rate to approach 20%. Long-term interest rates, despite this, have continued to grow. The ten-year Treasury bond rate surged from around 11% in October 1980 to more than 15% a year later, probably due to market expectations that the Fed would soften its restrictive monetary policy if unemployment soared (Goodfriend and King 2005). Volcker, on the other hand, was insistent that the Fed not back down this time: “We have set our course to control money and credit growth.” We intend to stay the course” (Volcker 1981a).
High interest rates put pressure on sectors of the economy that rely on borrowing, such as manufacturing and construction, and the economy officially entered a recession in the third quarter of 1981. Unemployment increased from 7.4% at the beginning of the recession to nearly 10% a year later. Volcker faced repeated calls from Congress to loosen monetary policy as the recession worsened, but he insisted that failing to lower long-run inflation expectations now would result in “more catastrophic economic situations over a much longer period of time” (Monetary Policy Report 1982, 67).
This perseverance paid off in the end. Inflation had dropped to 5% by October 1982, and long-term interest rates had begun to fall. The Fed allowed the federal funds rate to drop to 9%, and unemployment fell quickly from nearly 11% at the end of 1982 to 8% a year later (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; Goodfriend and King 2005). Inflation was still a threat, and the Fed would have to deal with several “inflation scares” during the 1980s. However, Volcker’s and his successors’ dedication to actively pursue price stability helped ensure that the 1970s’ double-digit inflation did not reappear.
Is it true that the US recession of the 1970s was driven by?
In actuality, the 1970s were a period of growing prices and unemployment; the periods of slow economic growth could all be attributed to high oil prices’ cost-push inflation.
What was Carter’s presidency like?
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the United States’ 39th president from 1977 to 1981. He was a member of the Democratic Party and served as Georgia’s 76th governor from 1971 to 1975, as well as a state senator from 1963 to 1967. Carter has stayed active in political and social endeavors since leaving government, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian efforts.
Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He then joined the US Navy and served on a variety of submarines. He left his naval career after his father died in 1953 and came home to Plains, where he took over his family’s peanut-growing business. Due to his father’s remission of debts and the distribution of the wealth among himself and his siblings, he inherited relatively little. Nonetheless, his dream of expanding and growing the family’s peanut farm came true. Carter was pushed to resist racial segregation and assist the developing civil rights movement at this time. He joined the Democratic Party as an activist. Carter served in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967 before being elected governor of Georgia in 1970, defeating previous Governor Carl Sanders in the Democratic primary. He held the position of governor until 1975. He secured the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976 despite being a dark horse contender who was hardly recognized outside of Georgia. Carter ran as an outsider in the 1976 presidential election and narrowly defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford.
Carter issued Proclamation 4483 on his second day in office, pardoning all draft evaders during the Vietnam War. During his presidency, two new cabinet-level agencies were created: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy program that encompassed conservation, price control, and the introduction of new technology. The Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks were all pursued by Carter (SALT II). On the economic front, he had to deal with stagflation, which is characterized by persistently high inflation, high unemployment, and weak development. The 19791981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan marked the end of his presidency. Carter escalated the Cold War in response to the invasion by ending dtente, imposing a grain embargo on the Soviets, announcing the Carter Doctrine, and leading a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. He is the only president to have completed a full term in office without appointing a Supreme Court justice. Senator Ted Kennedy challenged him in the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries, but he won re-nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Carter was defeated by Republican contender Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election in a landslide. Carter is seen as a below-average president by historians and political scientists. His post-presidential efforts have received more positive attention than his reign.
Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982 to advocate and enhance human rights. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his role in co-founding the center. He has traveled extensively in underdeveloped countries to conduct peace talks, observe elections, and promote disease prevention and eradication. Carter is a significant player in the Habitat for Humanity organization. He has written over 30 volumes, ranging from political memoirs to poetry, and he continues to comment on current events in the United States and around the world, notably the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. At
What was the rate of inflation during Carter’s presidency?
However, as those elder Americans will attest, today’s price rises, as undesirable as they are, are nothing compared to those in the 1970s and early 1980s. What’s more, for policymakers trying to deal with today’s price spikes, the factors that fueled the double-digit price increases in those days are no longer a factor and are unlikely to be in the future.
“From that event, we learnt our lessons,” said Louis Johnston, an economics professor at College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota.
Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter both attempted but failed to control costs. Among Ford’s efforts was a “The “Whip Inflation Now” (WIN) campaign, complete with gleaming red buttons, did little to help with inflation. In late 1974, shortly after assuming office, inflation reached 12.2 percent, nearly twice the annual rate of increase through November of the previous year.
In March and April of 1980, the inflation rate reached a new high of 14.6 percent. Carter was defeated in the election that autumn as a result of it. It also resulted in huge economic changes in the United States.
Today’s unadjusted annual inflation rate is 7.1 percent, the biggest 12-month change since June 1982.
Here are some of the significant differences between today’s US economy and the 1980s economy:
Wages tied to prices
One of the significant contrasts between inflation then and now is that there was a considerably higher number of unionized workers in the US, and many of those workers had Cost of Living Adjustments, or COLAs, written into their contracts. As prices rose, this immediately increased their wages. As a result, increased prices led to greater wages, putting more money in the hands of consumers while increasing corporate costs. It triggered the so-called “wage-price spiral,” which fueled increased prices.
Even non-union enterprises would raise wages to keep up with inflation to avoid losing workers to unionized employers or giving ammunition to union organizing campaigns.
Only approximately 12% of workers are represented by unions today, which is less than half of the figure in 1983, the first year for which the government collected data. The majority of today’s unionized workers are government employees, such as teachers, police officers, and firefighters. Only 7% of private-sector workers belong to a labor union. And the majority of those contracts do not include COLA clauses. During the prolonged era of low inflation during the last two decades, unions were willing to forego COLAs in exchange for other salary and benefit increases.
The only COLA that is now in place is for Social Security claimants, and employers do not believe that setting salaries to compete with those benefits is necessary.
Wages are growing as a result of a record number of job opportunities and a labor shortage. However, because those pay gains are less than inflation, they are unlikely to result in higher pricing.
A global check on prices
Because competition from outside imports was not as fierce in the 1970s and 1980s as it is now, higher costs could be passed on to consumers more easily in the form of higher prices.
While there was clearly competition from abroad at the time, in many sectors of the economy, businesses only had to worry about domestic competitors. That is no longer the case.
In recent decades, a growth in global trade has kept inflation in control. Part of today’s inflation is due to issues with the global supply chain, which has resulted in an increase in shipping prices around the world. As a result, the supply of low-cost competition has been limited, allowing even major domestic enterprises to boost their prices.
Oil shocks hurt worse back then
Rapidly rising energy prices are a common component in both the record inflation of the 1970s and 1980s and today’s inflation.
Following the Arab-Israeli War in 1973, Arab OPEC countries imposed an embargo on oil imports to the United States, which lasted until 1974. In 1979, the Iran-Iraq war cut off supply as well.
Prices soared due to a scarcity of supplies. In early 1980, drivers faced a 69 percent increase in petrol costs compared to the previous year, which was much worse than the 58 percent yearly increase experienced through November of this year.
Large percentage rises in oil and gas costs this time are partly owing to comparisons to very low prices in 2020, when stay-at-home orders and widespread temporary job losses caused a glut of oil, resulting in momentarily negative oil prices.
Because of the lower prices, oil producers have reduced output and some refineries have closed. When demand returned this year, the limited supply and high demand conspired to push prices higher.
Although oil and gas prices are likely to remain stable or rise in the next months, the good news is that the US economy is far less reliant on oil now than it was 40 or 50 years ago.
Moving away from an economy based on energy-intensive industries like manufacturing and toward one based on service industries has lessened our need on oil.
“The reduced energy intensity of the American economy is one of the most underestimated shifts,” Johnston remarked.
When overall energy consumption is compared to gross domestic product, the broadest measure of a country’s economic activity, the US economy uses approximately a third of the energy per inflation-adjusted dollar of economic activity it did in 1970, and about 44% when inflation peaked in 1980.
The oil shocks of the 1970s and 1980s drastically reduced oil’s use as a source of power generation, to the point where it now accounts for less than 1% of total electricity output. More crucially, while driving many more miles, much more fuel-efficient cars reduced oil use. As a result, Americans spend significantly less on oil than they do on other products.
Deregulation
Another notable difference in the US economy is that the government now plays a considerably smaller role in price fixing than it did previously.
According to Johnston, deregulation of industries including telecommunications, airlines, and trucking began as a reaction to high costs in the 1970s and 1980s. Government-controlled prices stifled competition and artificially raised prices and services available to customers.
Despite the fact that the real changes in the law didn’t take effect until after the inflation dragon had been slain, deregulation has helped to keep costs for many of those goods and services lower than they would have been otherwise.
Inflation was finally brought under control, thanks in part to the Federal Reserve’s chairman, Paul Volcker, raising the federal funds rate to a record high of 18.9%, triggering recessions in 1980 and 1981-82. The inflation rate had dropped to 4.5 percent at the conclusion of the second recession, and it wouldn’t reach 5% again until 1990.
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What was the state of the US economy when President Carter entered office in 1977?
Carter took office amid a time known as “stagflation,” in which the economy was plagued by high inflation and slow development. Although the United States had recovered from the 197375 recession, many Americans remained concerned about the economy, particularly inflation, in 1977 and 1978. In 1976, the economy grew by 5%, and it continued to develop at a similar rate in 1977 and 1978. Unemployment fell from 7.5 percent in January 1977 to 5.6 percent in May 1979, with more than 9 million net new jobs generated during that time, while real median family income increased by 5% between 1976 and 1978. Carter declared the start of “phase two” of his anti-inflation campaign on national television in October 1978, in response to increasing inflation. He named Alfred E. Kahn as Chairman of the Council on Wage and Pricing Stability (COWPS), which set price objectives for industries and enacted other anti-inflationary programs.
The 1979 oil crisis brought an end to a period of expansion, with inflation and interest rates rising while economic growth, job creation, and consumer confidence plummeted. The Federal Reserve Board Chairman G. William Miller’s comparatively liberal monetary policy had already contributed to greater inflation, which had risen from 5.8% in 1976 to 7.7% in 1978. Inflation rose to double digits as a result of OPEC’s abrupt doubling of crude oil prices, averaging 11.3 percent in 1979 and 13.5 percent in 1980.
Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board following a cabinet shuffle in mid-1979. Volcker adopted a tight monetary policy in order to reduce inflation, but this strategy had the unintended consequence of further lowering economic development. “Easy money and cheap credit during the 1970s had created runaway inflation, which peaked at 13 percent in 1979,” according to author Ivan Eland. Carter initiated an austerity program by executive order, justifying the actions by claiming that inflation had reached a “crisis stage” in February and March 1980, when both inflation and short-term interest rates were at 18 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted to its lowest level since mid-1976 in March, and unemployment soared to 7% the following month. The economy fell into yet another recession, the fourth in less than a decade, and unemployment swiftly climbed to 7.8%. This “V-shaped recession” and the attendant melancholy occurred during Carter’s re-election campaign in 1980, and it led to his shocking defeat to Ronald Reagan. GDP and employment totals did not return to pre-recession levels until March 1981.
What was the outcome of the 1980 recession?
Beginning in January 1980, there was a recession. Credit for vehicle and home loans became more difficult to obtain as a result of the rising federal funds rate. This resulted in significant contractions in industry and housing, both of which were reliant on consumer credit. The majority of the jobs lost during the recession were in the manufacturing sector, while the service sector remained mostly unaffected.
Manufacturing lost 1.1 million jobs during the crisis, for a total of 1.3 million jobs lost during the recession, accounting for 1.2 percent of payrolls. In 1979, the automotive industry, which was already in bad shape due to low sales, lost 310,000 jobs, or 33 percent of its workforce. A similar 300,000 people lost their jobs in the construction industry. Unemployment peaked at 7.8% in June 1980, but it remained relatively stable until the remainder of the year, averaging 7.5 percent through the first quarter of 1981.
In July 1980, the recession was declared officially over. Beginning in May, when interest rates fell, payrolls began to rise. Unemployment among auto employees climbed from 4.8 percent in 1979 to a record high of 24.7 percent in 1980, before falling to 17.4 percent by the end of the year. Unemployment in the construction industry increased to 16.3 percent in the third quarter and then began to decline at the end of the year.
There were questions in the final quarter of 1980 that the economy was recovering, and that it was instead experiencing a short pause. Poor house and auto sales in the closing months of 1980, as well as a second wave of rising interest rates and a stagnating jobless rate, reinforced these fears.
What caused the recession of 1973?
A recession is defined as a drop in economic activity that lasts at least two quarters and results in a decrease in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Translation? A significant decline in consumer expenditure, resulting in job losses, personal income losses, and business profit losses. This is frequently the outcome of a financial shock, such as a bursting ‘bubble.’
When products, such as stocks or homes, become worth more than their true value, an economic bubble occurs. When the bubble collapses, these products’ prices plummet.
Because corporate profits plummet, this is frequently accompanied by a reduction in business investment. Because too many people are seeking too few jobs, the slowdown in company investment leads to more personal and business bankruptcies, as well as greater unemployment rates.
They are frequently the outcome of a financial shock. A shock can occur in a variety of ways.
The housing bubble was largely blamed for the recession of 2007-2009. Following a spike in house prices in the early part of the decade, home prices fell, and many of borrowers found themselves unable to repay their debts. Meanwhile, Wall Street was selling financial derivatives linked to the loans, which were later proven to be worthless.
We can see the’shocks’ of other recessions by looking at them. The ‘Online Bubble,’ in which internet stocks and businesses eventually plummeted to considerably lower prices, prompted the recession of 2001. This resulted in a significant drop in company investment and a rise in unemployment.
The 1973-1975 recession in the United States was triggered by skyrocketing petrol costs as a result of OPEC’s increased oil prices, as well as the suspension of oil exports to the United States. Other significant contributors included high government spending on the Vietnam War and the 1973-74 Wall Street stock market meltdown.
This was the worst recession in the United States since the Great Depression at the time. Most economists now feel that the Great Recession of 2007-2009 was more severe than the recession of 1973-1975.
According to analysts, there was even a recession during the Great Depression, which was the worst in the country’s history at the time.
Several factors contributed to the’recession’ of 1937 and 1938. The United States spent a lot of money to get out of the Great Depression. That was the New Deal, which began in 1933 and was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s effort to get the economy moving.
In 1937, however, as the economy appeared to be improving and Congress sought to balance the budget, the government cut spending and subsequently raised taxes. That was sufficient’shock’ to send the economy into a tailspin. Unemployment climbed once more, and business profits, as well as business investment, fell.
According to economists, the Great Depression lasted until 1941, when the United States entered World War II.
The 33rd president, Harry Truman, is noted with saying, “When your neighbor loses his job, you have a recession. When you lose yours, you get a depression.”
A depression, as opposed to a recession, is a far more severe slowdown in a country’s economic growth over a longer period of time, resulting in significantly more unemployment and lower consumer expenditure.
That’s why the late-twentieth-century Great Depression was dubbed “the Great Depression.” The economic hardship was protracted and agonizing. In reality, following World War II, the term “recession” came to be used to denote an economic slump that was not as severe as a depression. Previously, practically all economic downturns in the United States were referred to as depressions or panics.
The 1929 Wall Street crash, as well as bank failures in the early 1930s, were the primary causes of the Great Depression. The federal government did not insure depositors’ funds as it does now. The New Deal left us with this insurance.
Protectionist trade measures to assist boost American firms but raise product costs, as well as a catastrophic drought in the Midwest known as the Dust Bowl that left thousands of farmers out of work, all contributed to the Great Depression.
Yes. It has the potential to turn into a depression, implying that the economic downturn would worsen and last longer.
Although there hasn’t been an acknowledged case of such shift yet, the 1937-38 recession did contribute to the Great Depression’s extension.
It’s possible for a recession to ‘double dip.’ A W-shaped recession is a term used to describe this situation. This indicates that a recession can end for a while before resuming due to another economic shock.
Economists believe the 1980s had a double-dip recession. The first leg of the double dip began in January 1980 and continued through July of that year. The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to prevent inflation after the economy began to grow for a spell and was thought to be out of recession.
From July 1981 to November 1982, the country experienced another recession as a result of this economic shock. It was now a double whammy.
In theory, a recession ends when economists declare it to be over, but people on the street may disagree.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, an impartial body of economists, is in responsibility of announcing the end of a recession in the United States.
A recession, on the other hand, usually ends when the economy begins to grow over a period of time, usually two or more business quarters. This means that firms are rehiring, consumers are spending, and businesses are investing.
That isn’t to say that everyone has re-gained employment or that businesses are investing more than they were before the recession. It simply means that a country’s total economy is expanding or growing more consistently.
What caused the 1970s’ high inflation?
- Rapid inflation occurs when the prices of goods and services in an economy grow rapidly, reducing savings’ buying power.
- In the 1970s, the United States had some of the highest rates of inflation in recent history, with interest rates increasing to nearly 20%.
- This decade of high inflation was fueled by central bank policy, the removal of the gold window, Keynesian economic policies, and market psychology.
Key Points
- Volcker is credited with bringing the United States’ high inflation levels of the 1970s and early 1980s to an end while serving as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
- Inflation was high when he became chairman in 1979, peaking at 13.5 percent in 1981. The inflation rate fell to 3.2 percent by 1983, thanks to Volcker and the rest of the board’s efforts.
- In June of 1981, Volcker increased the federal funds rate from 11.2 percent to 20%. During this time, the jobless rate surpassed 10% for the first time.
- During the economic upturn, Volcker elected to implement a policy of preemptive restraint, which raised real interest rates.
- Volcker’s Federal Reserve board garnered some of the biggest political criticisms and protests in the Federal Reserve’s history, despite his level of accomplishment. The demonstrations erupted as a result of the high interest rates’ harmful impact on the building and farming businesses.
Key Terms
- Stagflation is defined as inflation that is accompanied by slow growth, unemployment, or a recession.
- Inflation is defined as a rise in the overall level of prices or the cost of living.
What did Jimmy Carter do after leaving the White House?
Following his defeat in the 1980 presidential election in the United States, former President Jimmy Carter returned to Georgia to his peanut farm, which he had placed in a blind trust during his office to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest. He discovered that the trustees had mismanaged the trust, leaving him with a debt of more than a million dollars. In the years afterwards, he has maintained an active lifestyle, founding the Carter Center, constructing his presidential library, teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, and authoring multiple books. He’s also helped Habitat for Humanity expand its efforts to develop affordable housing. Carter has remained alive longer than any other US president after leaving the White House, with a current age of 41 years and 62 days.