The Current State of US Economy
The US economy is regarded as the largest and the most diversified economy in the world. The economy of the US plays a significant role in the global economy. It means the state of the US economy can provide an indication of the current situation of the global economy. In macroeconomics, the evaluation of the present state of US economy considers many economic indicators in the country. The paper evaluates the present situation of the US economy based on three macroeconomic goals that comprise economic expansion, permanent employment and cost constancy. Furthermore, the evaluation of the present situation of the US economy also considers one alternative measure for the well-being of the economy.
Economic
…show more content…
Measures of economic well-being such as GDP are subject to some limitations hence it is appropriate to use other alternative measures of economic growth. The limitations of GDP in measuring the economic well-being of a country include failure to capture the underground economy and failure to capture changes inequality. Others include the development of new products and failure to take in account human or leisure costs (Maddison 48).
Alternative measures can also be used to help reduce some of the limitation of GDP as a measure of economic well-being. Other alternative measures include inequality, poverty rate and interest rates. The best alternative measure that can also be used to determine the well-being of US economy is inequality. The bias levels in the US have been increasing over the years an indication that there exists a huge gap involving the meager and the wealthy. According to statistics, the inequality in the US over the past decades has increased from 7 percent to 22 percent (US Census Bureau 1). The current statistics also shows that 0.1 percent of the US population owns 22 percent of the total
5. How are the wealth and productivity of a nation usually measured, and what other factors must be considered when evaluating the well-being of a nation’s people?
-The nation’s GDP is a good measure of its economic well being and progress because it represents the total value of all goods and services produced in an economy, and what a country produces and what it consumes are nearly identical.
In our team paper, we are going to evaluate, assess, and apply various economic situations from a Keynesian and Classical perspective. As the global markets increase and decrease over time careful modifications of the economy of the United States need to be made. After a comprehensive assessment of the current economic situation team C has agreed, that the Current State of Interest Rates, unemployment, exceptions, and consumer incomes and spending are the distinct factors that have an influence on economic forecasting and growth. The US is still recovering from the financial crisis there is still some skepticism, despite recent signs in
Wealth inequality in the United States has grown tremendously since 1970. The United States continuously reveals higher rates of inequality as a result of perpetual support for free market capitalism. The high rates of wealth inequality cause the growing financial crisis to persist, lower socio-economic mobility, increase national poverty, and have adverse effects on health and well being.
14. Explain why a nation’s GDP is both a good and poor measure of its economic well-being and progress?
Last time we discussed the most important measure of economic well-being – real, per capita GDP. Further, if we want to see how our economic well-being is changing over time, we can calculate how real GDP is changing in percentage terms (for example, real GDP grew 4% last quarter).
This imbalance has not been seen since before 1917 and during the Great Depression, when inequality peaked. Additionally, income inequality is on a continued trend towards a further disproportion. Evidenced by the Gini Index, a “standard economic measure of income inequality” (7) where a score of 0.0 on shows a perfect equality in income distribution and a score of 1 means one person takes all of the income, the United States has one of the highest of income disparities of the 35 members countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (10), at 0.469 on the Gini index (8). The UN indicates that a coefficient of 0.4 and above is a predictor for social unrest and above 0.5 indicates a severe gap between the wealthiest class and the working
The United States is the leading economy across the globe and experienced several tribulations in the recent past following the 2008 global recession. Despite these recent challenges, there are expectations among policymakers and financial experts that the country will experience solid economic growth. Actually, financial analysts have stated that the U.S. economy will be characterized by increased consumer spending, increased investments by businesses, reduced rate of unemployment, and reduction in government cut. Some analysts have also stated that the country’s economy will strengthen in 2014 with an average of 2.7 percent or more. However, these predictions can only be understood through an analysis of the current macroeconomic
This study considers the conditions of income, wealth and poverty in the United States of America. Income got a better distribution during the 70s but the level of economic growth decreased aggravating the unequal distribution of income (Stone, et al). However, wealth enclosed an inequality of distribution in the United States. It is referred to the unequal distribution of assets among residents of the United States. Also wealth is associated to the values of homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments. In this context, statistics of poverty indicate people living at the economic adversity without satisfying their basic necessities. In mention by the article named “Measuring Poverty (A New Approach),” the statistical data of poverty is published by the U.S. government being a topic of importance and political sensitivity.
“How many economists does it take to change a light bulb? None. If the light bulb needed changing the market would have already done it.”-Any website with economic jokes. However, the method that the market mentioned is being measured is neither the best nor the only way to measure economic progress of a country. Page 200 of Naked Economics quotes, “Any measure of economic progress depends on how you define progress. GDP just adds up the numbers. There is something to be said for that.” I believe that the narrator is giving a caveat that GDP is simply the culmination of numerical values from consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports and despite being useful, should not be the primary measurement of economic progress. Wheelman also states that any alternative measurement tools vary based on different people’s judgement of what to take into account. Similarly, I agree with Wheelman. I believe that there are instances where focusing on raw
Robert F Keneddy speech on GDP highlighted the unique aspects associated with the understanding of GDP. The speech talked about the meaning and importance of GDP and the misinterpretations that are often attached with the concept. He was of the view that accumulation of material things has remained a main focus of economic agents and doing so community values and community excellence are often compromised. In his speech he presented an important concept that GDP cannot be used as a measure of welfare of wellbeing of the economy because it does not take into account the health of individuals, their standard of living, quality of education provided to the individuals etc. In this way it is not a good option to rely on GDP while having an idea about the development of an economy.
Thirdly, I do not believe GDP is always a good indicator of the economic development of a nation. Economic development is more than a figure representing the total value of goods and services produced in a given year in comparison to total consumer, government and investment spending. Economic development is about increasing the standard of living and social wellbeing of a nation’s people in association with sustained economic growth but there does not appear to have been sufficient information collected to ascertain this was the case in all 8 nations. The USA could be considered one such example: a nation with a substantial GDP yet it has increasing deterioration in the level of general health and growing literacy issues across its population.
One of the primary indicators used to judge the health of a country’s economy is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is the total value of goods and services produced during a period of time. GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. There are three ways of calculating GDP, the production approach, the income approach, and the expenditure approach, all of which should come up with the same basic results. GDP can be used to judge recession and recovery periods and how prosperous a country is. The author then discusses trends, statistics and forecasts for GDP.
George Bernard Shaw, a nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 once said, “If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion” (Mankiw, 1998: 34). Yet, an economic comparison between the United Kingdom and the United States could still be made to distinguish the country with the better economic growth performance. Important indicators when comparing economies is economic growth rate, which is a measure of the yearly rate of development rate of GDP using the market prices (Ros, 2013: 26). Another indicator is the GDP, which is defined as the total amount of goods and services produced in a country per year (Mankiw, 2009: 521). Also, the inflation rate is used, which is a continuos increase in the prices for goods and services in the consumer price index and it is measured yearly (Herr & Kazandziska, 2011: 74). Lastly, the unemployment rate shows the percentage of people whiling and could work but do not have a job (Macdonald, 1999: 238). This report will compare the economic growth performance of the United States and the United Kingdom since 1990 using four indicators: economic growth rate, GDP, inflation, and unemployment rate.
In earlier times Gross Domestic Product was one of the main indicators to measure a country’s wealth. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is defined as the total value of all the goods and services produced by a nation in any given year ("Is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a Good Measure of Prosperity?"). There are two ways of calculating a country’s GDP. The first is the income approach which is calculated by adding the wages of workers, income from rent, interest and profits. The second, more common form of calculating GDP, is the expenditure approach. Here GDP totals consumption expenditure, investment, government spending and net exports. GDP statistics are considered to reflect a county’s economic output which could possibly lead to growth. However GDP is a measure of income and it should not be confused with wealth. Which is why most modern economists do not consider GDP to be a good measure of a