mid-1991 to late 2000, at 43% (3.8% a year), and from late 1982 to mid-1990, at 37% (4% a year). In the 1970s and 1980s, it was popular in the U.S. to believe that Japan's economy would surpass that of the U.S., but this did not occur. Since the 1970s, several emerging countries have begun to close the economic gap with the United States. In most cases, this has been due to moving the manufacture of goods formerly made in the U.S. to countries where they could be made for sufficiently less money to cover the cost of shipping plus a higher profit. In other cases, some countries have gradually learned to produce the same products and services that previously only the U.S. and a few other countries could produce. Real income growth in the U.S. has slowed. 21st century The United States economy experienced a recession in 2001 with an unusually slow jobs recovery, with the number of jobs not regaining the February 2001 level until January 2005. This "jobless recovery" overlapped with the building of a housing bubble and arguably a wider debt bubble, as the ratio of household debt to GDP rose from a record level of 70% in Q1 2001 to 99% in Q1 2008. Homeowners were borrowing against their bubble-priced homes to fuel consumption, driving up their debt levels while providing an unsustainable boost to GDP. When housing prices began falling in 2006, the value of securities backed by mortgages fell dramatically, causing the equivalent of a bank run in the essentially unregulated non-depository banking system, which had outgrown the traditional, regulated depository banking system. Many mortgage companies and other non-depository banks (e.g., investment banks) faced a worsening crisis in 2007–2008, with the banking crisis peaking in September 2008, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and bailouts of several other financial institutions. The Bush administration (2001–2009) and Obama administrations (2009–2017) applied banking bailout programs and Keynesian stimulus via high government deficits, while the Federal Reserve maintained near-zero interest rates. These measures helped the economy recover, as households paid down debts in 2009–2012, the only years since 1947 where this occurred, presenting a significant barrier to recovery. Real GDP regained its pre-crisis (late 2007) peak by 2011, household net worth by Q2 2012, non-farm payroll jobs by May 2014, and the unemployment rate by September 2015. Each of these variables continued into post-recession record territory following