State of the US Economy and Appropriate Macroeconomic Policies (970 words)

What is the current macroeconomic situation in the U.S. (e.g. is the U.S. economy currently concerned about unemployment, inflation, recession, etc.)? What fiscal policies and monetary policies would be appropriate at this time?

Write your individual answers to the questions listed above together in essay format (minumum of 300 words combined in APA style), using correct economic terms covered in the discussions.

Key concepts to include in your paper--data trends on unemployment, inflation, GDP growth, expansionary fiscal policy tools, FOMC, easy money policy tools and other terms from this class.

You must use at least one article.

Introduction
Since the Great Recession in 2008 the economy has been on a long recovery fueled by novel expansionary macro-economic policies. In particular, Federal Reserve has implemented new monetary tools to keep interest rates low, and fiscal policy has been hotly debated throughout President Obama’s two terms in office because expansionary policies tend to increase the nation’s debt. Here we review the state of the economy as of June 2015 and discuss potential appropriate macroeconomic policy responses.

State of the Economy - June 2015
Several economic indicators from the Bureau of Economic Analysis help to provide a picture of the current state of the economy. When gross domestic product (GDP, which measures the value of all goods and service produced in the economy) growth is positive, the economy is expanding and when it is negative, it can be indicative of a contraction. Importantly, while GDP growth has been positive in each of the last three quarters of 2014, the revised (second) estimate for GDP growth in the first quarter of 2015 is a negative 0.7 percent (BEA as of June 10, 2015). Two main causes for this contraction are a severe (deep-freeze) winter and a slowdown in imports and exports because of a labor dispute at the ports on the west coast (BEA: GDP Highlights)....

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