Government Policy and The Business Cycle

Word Splash• economic growth• stability• full employment• PPI• inflation• unemployment• GDP per capita• CPI• housing starts• retail sales

• Write Word Splash on one side of the index card

• On the back side of the index card, write a definition (in your own words, not Webster’s or dictionary.com’s) and an illustration for each word.

• Make sure your group agrees with your definition before writing it on the card • I will not be giving extra cards

for “messing up”

Questions• Which of the words are considered goals of economic policy? • (economic growth, stability, full employment)

• What are the economic indicators that measure each goal?• GDP for economic growth, CPI for stability, and unemployment

rate for full employment. Other indicators are housing starts and retail sales

Business Cycle Notes• Different Powerpoint, follow along on handout

US GDP• If you see a drop in GDP, what most likely is happening to

employment?

Public Sector• Go station to station in your group, taking notes based on

what you read• Once you have gone through all the groups, you will write a

short paragraph (one per group) discussing how the role of government in the economy• Is the government involved a lot? Has that involvement helped?,

etc

Taxes• You’ll be put into groups; each group gets the same set of

Taxes cards• Get a piece of butcher paper (big sticky note) and create a

three column chart. Your columns should be labeled Local, State, and National

• Research your different taxes and put them in the correct category. Underneath your tax, write a short description of what it is.

Unemployment• Different Powerpoint

GDP and Unemployment• Look at the years:• 1914-1918• 1929-1936• 1941-1945• 1980-1989• 2010

• Write a paragraph discussing the relationship you see between GDP and unemployment and what the government did to fix it• Example: When GDP is high, unemployment is ____. When

unemployment was high the government did ____.