Unemployment Rate in Different States Term Paper

Unemployment Rate in Different States - Term Paper Example Unemployment Rate in Different States At first glance it is very easy to blame the 2008 economic downturn on the likes of people like Bernard Madoff and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. A lot of people even speak of the availability of â€Å"subprime† mortgages given to those who might not otherwise qualify for them. The housing bubble then burst, putting millions out of work in the domino theory. Another reason given is the United States fighting the Global War on Terror in two separate countries. Pouring money into two countries for what was deemed unwinnable conflicts struck many as a recipe for economic disaster. Whatever the reason, the entire planet began to suffer the effects of a â€Å"downturn† in 2008 that it has yet to recover from. Why and what the differences are between the different states are covered on the following pages. II. Worldwide Impact People cannot even agree what to call this crisis. The official name is a â€Å"downturn†, while there are many people, economists in cluded, who call it a recession. There are even those who hint of the word depression, even though politicians and economists alike vehemently deny the nation is in a depression. The memories of bread lines and political losses of 1929 are way too fresh in people’s minds for that term to probably ever be used again. Yet whatever one chooses to call it, this crisis seems to be unlike any felt since the end of World War II. As the table below shows, the economy of several selected countries has suffered greatly. Even those like China which did not go into the negative still endured losses of growth. GDP GROWTH 2008-09 SELECTED REGIONS (WTO) (PERCENTAGE) COUNTRY 2008 2009 USA 0.1 -2.8 EUROPEAN UNION 0.5 -4.0 CHINA 9.6 9.1 JAPAN -1.2 -6.3 DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AVG 0.2 -3.7 DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AVG 5.7 2.1 So it is evident a worldwide financial crisis cannot be blamed on any one man. Also since it has been well touted that in the rest of the world, mortgages are difficult if not imp ossible to obtain, the housing crisis is not the problem elsewhere. Also since many countries (such as China, Russia, and India) have historically always spent a large portion of their national budget on what Americans term defense, that should not pose a problem internationally either. But this paper is on unemployment in the United States and will therefore be the basis of the remainder of this paper. This introductory piece was just to show that this country has plenty of company in its misery and a Herculean effort will be required to make us feel safer monetarily. Yet it is also true that diversity plays a key in a region’s growth or failure. For instance, the WTO points out that most of the major powers in the European Union (like Germany and France) actually saw growth during the period listed in the table but statistically the entire Union endured losses, largely due to such countries as Ireland and Greece. The same can be said for the fifty states. While the United S tate’s unemployment rate rose five percentage points from 2007-10 (4.6 to 9.6 per cent), certain states underwent either far less rise in unemployment. For example, between 2008 and 2009, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows some states such as New York, Michigan, and California shot to double digit figures. It is interesting to note that most of the jumps in unemployment were in the so-called industrialized states, while