Over the last few years GDP, inflation, and unemployment rates have fluctuated. Currently, they seem fairly stable. GDP is at a 2.1% growth rate. The trend hasn’t changed much over time. It seems that the only thing that has really shrunk throughout time with GDP is the amount of exports the US sends out, whereas personal consumption, government spending, and investment added ‘percentage points’ to the growth rate. With the growing GDP, unemployment rate appears to be decreasing. While it is at 4.5%, this is significantly lower than it has been in the past. The growth of GDP has allowed for new investments in technology and being able to find new ways to produce goods and services, thus causing problems with unemployment. Despite the fact …show more content…
And, many of the jobs that they originally were going for are unavailable, they are unable to find work in any field because they don’t have the required degree. The inflation rate of the United States is at a stable place. With a rate of 2.4%, it is in the area desired by both consumers and producers. People are able to purchase goods and services at a fairly reasonable price while producers are able to make a little more money from slightly increased prices. With a stable inflation rate allowing for a more stable economy, the unemployment rate continue to decrease because businesses may have more funds in order to keep more people employed. Many things go in to the determination of inflation, and shelter and medical care have remained fairly constant, meaning that their rates haven’t changed much, which makes it easier for people to afford it for longer. However, food and transportation rates have increased, which causes problems for some people who can’t afford to get places when they need to or to have as much food on the table for their families. But, these rates are still at a reasonable place, making the economy more stable as it continues through the …show more content…
The unemployment rate was going down, but the inflation and GDP growth rate were constantly fluctuating. Starting in 2003, the GDP growth rate was at a meager 2%, but that quickly jumped to 7% by 2003. Unemployment went from nearly 6% in 2002 down to roughly 4.5% by 2007. The rate of inflation, between 2004 and 2006, varied around the 3% mark, hitting a max of 4.7% and a minimum of roughly 1.7%. The data from the graphs shows that the rates of GDP and inflation began to drop more significantly as 2007/2008 was approached, and the unemployment rate began to skyrocket. The recession wasn’t a good time for the economy of the United States. There wasn’t much income, prices dropped, even though this didn’t benefit consumers much because they couldn’t afford it anyway, and many people lost their jobs. Simply looking at the growth rate of GDP shows that something was not right. By January of 2009, the rate had dropped to -8%. Unemployment jumped from a rate of 5% to 9% in less than a year. So many people lost their jobs because there wasn’t enough money in the economy to keep them around. Even today there are still a lot of people that are unemployed because they cannot find work. The inflation rate during the recession increased to 4% in January of 2008. By July, it hit at nearly 6%. But, by July of 2009, it rapidly decreased to 0%. The recession hit the United States economy pretty hard. People couldn’t find
From what is supposedly being shown in papers and on the news the U.S. economy is currently concerned about unemployment, caused by the recession. This “current macroeconomic situation” is pardoning my language freaking a lot of individuals out, because some have no idea of how it is going to get better. The news/media is not painting us such a pretty picture of it, by calling it “this decade’s depression”. The unemployment rate is at 8.2% as of July 2012, whereas the average in 1948 was at 5.6%.
In August 1929, the peak of the stock market boom, the unemployment rate in the United States was only about three percent. By the end of 1933, the unemployment rate was a staggering twenty-five percent. Over thirteen million people lost their jobs during these years. To put those figures into perspective, the unemployment rate during the recent Great Recession reached only ten percent at its peak in October 2009! Starting in 1930, consumers stopped purchasing goods as they had in the past. Either they didn’t have the money, or they were afraid to spend in fear that the money would be needed more urgently later. The decline in consumer spending further exacerbated the Great Depression because fewer people were buying things. Manufacturing companies did not need to produce as much as they had before, leading to a reduction in the work force. As people lost their jobs, they were unable to keep up with payments for items bought on credit before the financial crisis. The vicious cycle continued from
The Depression was a gruesome time where people had worked relentlessly to survive. Unemployment today is as severe as it was in the 1930s, the unemployment rate of today is nowhere near the unemployment of the Great Depression. A pair of economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas created report called “A Historical Look at the Labor Market During Recessions”. The report is a graph of the WWII Recession, showing that the unemployment rate of a few years ago has past the unemployment rate of the WWII Recession. In 2008 the authors wrote the Unemployment Rate, it’s a report that describes the recessions of the past to the years of 2006 to 2011. The most of the recessions are above or near the average, but the highest recession is the Great Depression.
When is the last time we experienced deflation (prices actually dropped- you will have to go back a few decades)?
The health of the current U.S. economy appears to be growing gradually. The second quarter real GDP growth was 3.7% and the unemployment rate declined to 5.3%. The U.S Federal Reserve (Fed) is expected to raise interest rates in the near future when it sees clear signs of strong economic growth and improvements in the job market.
Strother made a special point throughout the class to ask this questions way to many times, but it stuck in everyone’s head and I’m sure it is in everyone’s nightmares. As the World Bank shows, in 2007 when the great recession hit, the unemployment rate in 2007 when the recession started it was at 5.0 percent, in June of 2009 it rose to 9.5 percent. As the inflation rate was at 2.08% in 2007 and by 2009 it was at 0.03%. During the great recession, the unemployment rate was by far the scariest number I ran across. With all those Americans out of work it lead to the United States to go into the one of the largest budget deficits ever. The United States hit the all time low with numerous amounts of money being spent by the government but no money being spent by the citizens, which was the beginning of the huge debt we are in now and trying to get out
In December 2007, the United States experienced a time of rising unemployment and declining GDP (gross domestic product) that lasted until 2009. This period was dubbed the Great Recession due to the severity of the negative impacts. The U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as a “period of at least two consecutive quarters of declining levels of economic activity” (Krabbenhoft), and during the time span between 2007 and 2009 GDP decreased by 3.5 percent and unemployment rate increased more than 5 percent. The gross domestic product indicates the total value of goods and services produced over a period of time, so production and consumer spending decreased drastically. The government attempted to alleviate the unemployment rate and increase economic growth by creating what’s known as a multiplier effect. The multiplier effect occurs when there is an increase in final income from the increase in spending from the initial stimulus. Consumer expenditures make up 70 percent of GDP, and
The official number of unemployed Americans is 8.3 million. Gary Burtles, an economist at Brookings Institute, said that, “The 6.4 million people who haven’t looked for work recently enough to qualify as being ‘in the labor force,’ but who say they "currently want a job."And the 6.5 million people working part-time who would prefer to have a full-time job. This would mean that upwards of 21 million Americans could be described with some justification as "out of work" involuntarily, either fully or partially…” If the government were to control this issue with “New Deals” like FDR did, then maybe the employment rate would go down from the current 4.9% rate it is at currently. Now, the US economy added 242,000 jobs last year (2015), and that is impressive given that since the 2015 estimated population of Reno, Nevada is around 241,000. Yet think of all the children whose parents only have part-time work, or they only have one parent, or even worse neither of the parents are able to work and earn enough money for their family. Those children are the ones that get made fun of at school, or the ones that do drugs. Statistics show that kids with not so fabulous home lives are more likely to turn to drugs and suicide. Is that how we want the future of America to be? That the children of that nation are resulting to terrible things because the economy was bad? Think about if the United States government were to create programs for workers who don’t have their high-school diploma, or do but didn’t go to college or a trade school, the economy would boost
The unemployment rate in the United States has improved dramatically over the last two years, from a high of 8.3% in July 2012, to a low of 6.6% in January 2014. In October of 2012, the civilian labor force increased from 578,000 to 155.6 million, labor force participation increased up to 63.8%, and total employment overall rose by 410,000! Since then, the unemployment rate has been falling at a stable rate due to a political push from Washington DC and new employment initiatives. The inflation rate over the last 2 years has been relatively stably, with a few major increases and decreases in 2012 and 2013. It reached a high of 2.3% in June of 2012, and reached a low of 1.0% at the end of 2013. The federal interest rate has remained at a constant .25% over the past few years.
The Great Recession officially ended in 2009. Since then, the US economy has been sluggish but has shown signs of improvement. The Obama administration submitted bills to help stabilize the financial system and automobile industries. The Federal Reserve has maintained low interest rates in an attempt to encourage borrowing and spending money. The unemployment rate has dropped to approximately half what it was in 2009. Although wages haven’t increased to keep up with inflation, they are starting to show signs of improvement. Overall, the
Even though the recession was 9 years ago it still has given the American people some problems right now. The recession's impact still affects us till this day, it may seem like we are doing good right now, but a lot of Americans are still recovering from the damages and we are all still slightly affected by the recession. One way is money, we don't actually make as much as a lot of people were during the times before the recession, reason being is because during the recession the value of the dollar plummeted causing U.S currency to be worth basically nothing. Nancy M. Jackson states this about money when she writes, “ We make less money, One of the most obvious effects of the 2008 crash is number on your paycheck or the balance in your checking account.” (Nancy M.
The relationship between inflation and unemployment is a topic, which has been debated by economists for decades. It is this debate that has made the opinions about it evolve. In this essay, the controversial topic will be discussed by viewing different economists’ opinions on that according to time sequencing.
The relationship between unemployment and inflation has been the subject of heated debate, stimulate academic divide between macroeconomics because the relationship is difficult to explain. Rational expectations have been proposed by the new classical school of thought, there is not even a short-term trade-off between inflation and unemployment expected. Only a compromise when inflation is unanticipated. We think there is a compromise between the two, even in the short term, regardless of the fact that inflation is expected or not, and take the new Keynesian position on the issue.
The United States is currently experiencing a slow recovery from the recession of 2008-09. The current unemployment rate is 7.7%, which is the lowest level since December of 2008 (BLS, 2012). However, this rate is believed to higher than the rate that would occur if the economy was operating at peak efficiency, and it is also believed that there are structural issues still underpinning this performance. For example, the number of Americans who have exited the work force as the result of prolonged unemployment is believed to be higher than usual. In addition, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO, 2012) notes that long-term unemployment of greater than 26 weeks is at a much higher rate than normal, which will have adverse long-run effects on the economy, since workers with long-term unemployment often find their career paths derailed.
Inflation and unemployment are two of the most important economic performance indicators, and both are watched closely by analysts and businesses. Economists often cite he misery index, which includes the unemployment and inflation rate, as measuring the health of the economy. The Bartavian Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly releases a jobs report that economists and Bartavian policy makers follow closely and use to create policy.