Thomas B. Mandelbaum points out that, as we exited the 1980s, the region's unemployment rate had declined to its lowest level since 1979, and income and employment continued to expand in the longest peacetime recovery on record. Mandelbaum describes economic conditions in 1989 in the Eighth District’s business economy, placing the year’s developments in the context of the District’s and the nation’s economic growth during the 1980s. The author observes that, despite the general strengthening of the region’s economy in 1989, some of the District’s sectors, such as residential construction, weakened, and the economic performance of the region’s states varied widely. Furthermore, employment growth slowed in 1989 in each of the four primary states of the District. To the extent that projections of economic activity are accurate, employment growth will slow further in Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee in 1990.