Important Issue Facing Our Nation: The State of the U.S. Economy U.S.

Government & Politics 1100-024 Adriana Venegas

During the past years there is an issue that draws more focus by the media than any other: the state of the U.S. economy. That isnt to say that other issues arent important, yet none can argue against the importance of this particular issue. In 2007 the U.S. experienced a crash in the market that lead to a recession. Many of Americans were affected; the middle class can be said were the worst affected. Fast forward to 2014, the U.S. economy is still not at a state of recovery. The Great Recession saw the financial, real estate, and automobile industries distress to the point of having top executives pleading for a bailout to the U.S. government. Concurrently, Americans were losing their homes to foreclosure; the labor market took a tremendous hit putting 8.4 million out of a job according to statistics from the Economic Policy Institute. The burden of the negative events of this crisis was felt by the majority of the population, the working middle class, people like my family and friends. In the media I have come across some individuals speaking of a recovery. In December 2007 the unemployment rate was at 5%, in December of 2013 the rate was at 6.7% as reported by the Bureau of Labor statistics. Granted there has been a recovery in Wall Street since the crisis the rest of America is yet to relish in this notion of a recovery. Furthermore, our gross domestic product, GDP, grew by 4.1% still leaving us behind countries like China who boasts of over a 7% change. This minuscule growth is a far cry from a recovery, we still have more Americans unemployed than we did nearly seven years ago. Politians have made it their duty to blame their opponents for the subpar results to stimulate the labor market. Often republicans and democrats refuse to cooperate to implement changes to facilitate the creation of jobs. Meanwhile, citizens continue to suffer the disparities; with no sure guarantee of a soon recovery.