For those who are uneducated in economics, allow me to explain a couple of things. Economic activity is spurred by production which uses resources, labor, and capital. A country’s economy is the result of a set of processes that involves its culture, values, education, technological evolution, history, social organization, political structure, and legal systems. What this means is that a lot of forces drive a strong economy, and in turn determine the supply and demand of various goods and services. In short, the more people want things, the more things that companies need to make. The more things that need to get made require more people to make said things. The more people that make these said things make more money which lets them buy more things. Got it? Got it.

In 2013, the US was in limbo, the Harlem Shake was number one in the music charts, the first Sharknado film was released, Amanda Bynes was going through a psychotic episode, and the Jonas Brothers had broken up. It wasn’t much better from an economic stand-point either,  the US was experiencing the slowest economic growth post-recession (growing at 1.7% compared to 2.5 and 2.2 in the years prior), unemployment was improving, but still hovering around 8%. America had hit rock bottom (I guess you can say it was a Toxic environment).

However, on September 16, 2013, everything changed. Britney Spears had an album to promote, she needed to put out something to get her fans excited. She had released her greatest hits album the year prior, and most looked at this upcoming album to usher in the “second half” of her career (which again show how backward 2013 was… second half? Please, Britney is TIMELESS). As a result, ‘Work Bitch’ was released, and what happened next should be put into scripture.

Do you want to live fancy? Live in a big mansion? Party in France?! You better work bitch. The message itself was simple, if you’re someone who dreams but never achieves, you need to actually put in blood, sweat, and tears if you want something. The results and response to these words are staggering; Demand for goods and services spiked, and labor productivity increased five-fold in response to this. People took these lyrics to heart, they got to work, and stimulated the economy in the process. To keep up with this new found demand, companies had to hire more people, and soon the unemployment rate that was once at 8% was decreasing rapidly, as shown by this chart below:

As mentioned above, the economic growth in 2013 was 1.7%, the economic growth from 2014-2017, was 2.6%, 2.9%, 2.5%, and 2.3%. Unemployment has hit a 50 year low, and consumer spending is at record levels (essentially, people are saying, Gimme More stuff). Britney had inspired an entire generation to work towards their goals and achieve their dreams, this point cannot be stated enough.

In conclusion, some people say that the Obama administration is the reason why the economy is so strong, other people say it is because of Trump. The truth of the matter is that the strong economy was caused by underlying market trends set into motion by “Work Bitch.” Do not mistake correlation with causation and give credit to them for Britney’s economy. The chart speaks for itself.

Britney is the backbone of our nation’s economy, deal with it.