How the economy is affecting students, their families with jobs, college, and everyday life

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:11:00 GMT

By Kathryn Silvers

As the economy crashes, many families try to plan what their futures will consist of. The Consumer Price Index or the CPI is a program that produces monthly data on changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services. The graph above shows the decrease in consumer prices from September 2007 to September 2008.

The United States has the largest economy in the world. In 2007 it was estimated that $13.8 trillion was the gross domestic profit of the U.S.’s economy. This once strong economy has taken a large hit this year. Economic concerns of the U.S. include national debt, external debt, entitlement liabilities for retiring baby boomers who have already begun withdrawing from their Social Security accounts, corporate debt, mortgage debt, a low savings rate, falling house prices, a falling currency and a large current account deficit. While the United States economy is the largest in the world, as of June 2008, it has the largest external debt of all the countries in the world at $13 trillion. As of Oct. 1, 2008, the total U.S. federal debt exceeded $10 trillion. Economic problems started with rising oil prices, which led to rising gas and food prices which eventually led to global inflation. This inflation led to a credit crisis which caused the bankruptcy of large investment banks and numerous smaller commercial banks all over the nation. All of these combined, led to the rate of unemployment skyrocketing. The International Labor Organization predicts that by the end of 2009, at least 20 million jobs will have been lost due to the economic crisis. They predict that the majority of these jobs will be lost in the areas of construction, real estate, financial services and the auto sector. If this prediction is correct it will bring world unemployment to about 200 million for the first time in history. The majority of economic experts have predicted that the U.S. will experience a large recession. In an economic recession, the U.S.’s economy will experience a very high reduction in economic activity. In March 2008, the former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research predicted that the United States will begin to experience a severe economic recession. In an attempt to battle the recession, the U.S. Federal government sent out over 130 million economic stimulus checks. At the end of July 2008, in an interview with CNBC, Alan Greenspan said that he “believed that the U.S. was not yet in a recession, but that it could enter into one due to a global economic slowdown.” Moody’s Investors Service conducted a study that showed that two-thirds of the 381 largest Metropolitan areas were in a recession. While it is still unclear whether or not the U.S. will experience an economic recession, equal to that of the Great Depression, it is certain that the economy is changing and in the end it may not be for the best.

The Blue Streak

How the economy is affecting students, their families with jobs, college, and everyday life