I. The US Economy

The economic recession in the United States, part of a global contraction and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, appears to have bottomed out, and a recovery now seems to be underway.

As most people know, the United States and the world recently experienced the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Although the downturn in the US has been classified as a recession (officially defined as two or more consecutive quarters of a decline in a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the total amount of goods and services produced within its borders), this downturn has been qualitatively more severe than others of the post-World War II period. It has already seen:

*The layoffs of millions of workers, with official unemployment rates rising to close to 10%. Unofficial rates, that is, those that include workers who have given up looking for work and those working part-time but who would like full-time jobs, are much higher, around 17%. (In the Depression of the 1930s, official unemployment was 25%, while unofficial rates were probably close to 40%.)