summative notes - economics by decade

unpacked - the economics by decade starts in the 1940’s with the GI Bill. This creates opportunities for war veteran’s from WW2, such as education and housing, giving them a life after coming home from war. The 1950’s start with the beginning of the interstate highway system. This system, created by General Eisenhower, makes it easier for Americans to commute and travel to work easily. This system also brings about the growth of suburbanization and is generally well liked by the public. Next, Johnson in the 1960’s writes the Great Society, highlighting the need for African Americans to get education, for seniors to have health care, and overall to fight poverty in America. However, all of these good things come to an end when stagflation occurs in the 1970’s, meaning that the unemployment rates are very high along with inflation. The reason for this is because manufacturing has come to a grinding halt in America and there is almost no need for employees. However, there is also a decrease in oil supply, so the gas rates are going up along with the products of everything made with oil (nearly everything.) To add on, everything is cheaper overseas and leads to people buying more things overseas, consequently causing more businesses in America to shut down. To counteract these terrible events, in the 1980’s President Reagan starts policies that hope to help the Americans and drag them out of the stagflation. Reagan does this by creating the Reaganomics, a set of policies that allows Americans to spend as much money as they want and sell at whatever price deemed fit for their business. This free-market activity mindset also impacts the government by allowing the government to spend money hey don’t necessarily have in war efforts, such as the Cold War, and everywhere else. This then causes national debt and too much consumerism, one of the main causes of the Great Depression. In fear, the government and businesses start kicking up the manufacturing but, because of the total loss of control of money that the businesses have, they don’t have enough to pay employees, leading to the 1990’s Industry Employment Crisis. Many people desired by jobs at this time but couldn’t find one because of the unwillingness to pay the employers on the business’ behalf. However, this problem is soon fixed and the federal agencies finally have control over everything. Or so people thought, because in the 2000’s, when credit cards and loans were grinded to a halt in fear, the economy started to dwindle and employment started dropping. This was caused by the Credit Crunch, which was the stop of loan and credit cards for the American consumer. Eventually, this moment in history is named the Great Recession and finding a job, along with everything that entails a life, becomes very difficult. To make matters worse, a pandemic occurs in the 2020’s, leading to people dropping out of their jobs during quarantine and unemployment soaring again. However, having dealt with this before, the government ensures that American citizens have relief by implementing various stimulus packages and financial aid programs aimed at stabilizing the economy and supporting those who have lost their jobs such as SNAP (ensuring food insecurity drops by 30%), Child Tax Credit (which took most children out of poverty), unemployment insurance (ensured that the unemployed was still supported), and the American Rescue Plant Act (supported small businesses and the unemployment insurance). In conclusion, many things happened over the course of American History, as shown in this paragraph, and many things continue to happen. Hopefully, the government and citizens of America learn to learn from their mistakes and situations of the past, further improving America and the American dream.