Real-World Example of Stagnation The Great Recession , which began in 2008, kicked off a long period of economic stagnation, followed by a slow expansion from 2009 until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

In the early nineties, the photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia shot portraits of male prostitutes in Hollywood, whom he paid their going rates—twenty or thirty bucks, usually—to pose for him.