Economics

Economic Critique

Joseph Pace, Melissa Grimm, Vonda French, Richard Sierra, and Clayton Arceneaux

University of Phoenix

Week 3 Team Assignment

ECO/372

Kathleen Crump

2/18/13

Introduction

The United States economy is facing unstable times within our current economy; we have discovered some factors that influence the economy throughout the years. As a group of international reporters, we have researched many key factors to determine whether the economy is improving or continuing to head downwards.   A few economic factors were identified as influencing the state of the economy; unemployment, expectations, consumer income, and interest rates. These factors have ramifications on the current state of aggregate demand and supply.   The U.S. government has recommended and put forth fiscal policies to help regulate the changes the United States economy. Two economist perspectives; Keynesian and Classical, have influenced the efficiency of the created policies, so it is important that there is an understanding for its current status and where it will lead the economy overall.

Unemployment

Unemployment rate: The unemployment rate can be defined as the number of people actively looking for job divided by the labor force. Changes in unemployment depend mostly on inflows made up of non-employed people starting to look for jobs, of employed people who lose their jobs and look for new ones and of people who stop looking for employment.

While investigating unemployment numbers officially on the books, for the first 8 months of 2012, it is clear the United States economy is in trouble. The official Bureau of Labor statistics U-3 number stands at a narrow range of 8.1 to 8.3 percent of the working population. The U.S. unemployment rate has been over 8% for 35 straight months and by looking deeper into the numbers the unemployment picture appears bleaker still.   Statistics show one in five Americans is looking for work or working at less than full potential.  ...