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Alex He
Teddy Chocos
ESL 100D/E
The American Economy in 1980’s
-----Unemployment
Early 1980s was a dark age in America’s history, this giant just took out his feet
from the swamp of war and fell into another swamp--economic depression. During
this horrible period, thousands of corporations went bankrupt, millions of people
joined the line of unemployment, and the system of America’s economy just out of
control. More people were unemployed in this economic depression, and they
walked in the street lost their spirits like zombies without and minds, they had no idea
where they were and did not know where they suppose to go. They worried about how
to make money since wake up every morning, then brought disappointing back to
home day by day. However, reality tended to be more cruel than people’s imagination;
as an American who broth in this land had to share the little chance of job searching
with aliens, who came from other countries. Moreover, some problems like racial
discrimination, gender discrimination, and the difference of religious faith these kind
of factors also affected those people who really need a job to support family, made it
tough to find jobs. Even so, people need to solve the problem of shortage of food;
because of the Government’s intervention about farm business, many farmers quited
and started another business. People lined up for buying food. All of these the true
portraiture of the early 1980s.
So what caused this second biggest economic depression? In general, it has three
factors. Frist of all, the disease of economy inflation happened again, it was direct
cause of this depression and gave the whole country’s economy a huge damage. The
second, the wrong interference for their economy system from the Government, this
mistake made American economy situation in a mess. And the last one, the bad chain
reaction from the war between America and Vietnam, this war started from 1959 to
1975; although American favor troop withdrawal from Vietnam at 1970, but they still
supplied a lot staffs of military and military education for South Vietnamese. The
army made tons of bombs and spent almost hundreds millions dollars into this war.
In addition, the gross of bomb that threw into the battlefield of Vietnam War was
equivalent to three point five times of World War II.
("1975: Vietnam's President
Thieu Resigns." from BBC) Basically, each one of these three reasons is a fatal injury
for this economy depression.
After analyzing the overall reasons for economic disaster in 1980’s, a problem of
commonplace had stood in front of American again since last economy depression in
1930’s -- Unemployment. At the beginning of 1980’s, the rate of unemployment in the
America kept rising to ten point five percentages, beyond the highest record of nearly
forty years. For an example, here is a metaphor for understanding data easier, the
population of America in 1980’s was around two hundreds thirty one millions, and the
unemployment rate was ten point five percentages, that means there were about
twenty four millions people lost their job at the early 1980’s; Moreover, the America
had fifty states at that time, and average this population number to the whole country,
each state had five point six millions population at this way, and it means there were
almost three and a half states’ Americans were in the line of unemployment.
Unfortunately, the fact would be worse than this example in 1980’s. (Statistic shown by
US Department of Labor)
By discussing data is hard to know the real society that American lived in and
what the reality were. In citizens’ eyes, the only thing they saw was despair. In
Pittsburgh, the union president, Ron Weisen used to speak these words to describe
what he saw, "This is turning out to be the worst summer this town has ever seen. All
we got is unemployment, and the lines are getting longer. Men with families and no
work. We're getting butchered." He described what he saw in 1980’s. (Steelworker Ron
Weisen, 44, of Homestead, Pa) The “line” he talked about is the line of watching for jobs,
and some street slogans like “jobless men keep going, we can’t take care of our won”
were anywhere in cities. Of course, there were also some encouraging slogans, like
“jobless not hopeless”. And the other history witness, Debbie Pelligrion, the personnel
adviser cried for her life, "It's really hard to keep enthusiastic, to get my energy going.
I have to psych myself up for each interview, and the more I get turned down, the
harder it is to go to the next. Sometimes I feel like crying before I leave the house."
Actually, most people had the same feeling which Pelligrion had. (Personnel Adviser
Debbie Pelligrino, 30, of College Park, Ga.)however, when a person’s confidence walks at
the edge of collapse, a little sunshine could not change anything, most people were
pessimistic for future.
Even so, American still had more pressure than foreign nationalities. As a big
country which accepted a lot of foreigners from many different countries, it became
more difficult for native American to find a job. A job hunter, Kenneth Jerome Brown,
a Black man who lived in Miami and when talked about this issue in an interview, he
said, "I've been looking for a job since this winter, but there's nothing. Man, the
people who got the money hire who they want to hire. Cubans hire Cubans, and
Haitians work for almost nothing. Foreigners got it made over here, especially if they
speak Spanish." (Kenneth Jerome Brown, 21, of Miami) More immigrations came to this
superpower country means fierce job hunting competitions people faced. But usually
owners were white people, and white people prefer to hire white people or other color
kinds of people than Black, even the Civil Rights Movement still not over at that time.
Plusing different religious faith, Black men would be the hardest people to live in
1980s.
As a matter of fact, people also queued up for buying food, it is not just lined up
for finding jobs. Many people even could not solve problems about food at that period,
they worried about having no dinner after finishing launch. They might not buy any
food even they owned money, because the shortage of food in 1980’s was serious.
According to the interference about the price of food by the Government, all prices
went down and down. Those food suppliers, farmers found there was no benefit left
after price adjustment, they stoped their farm business and made the big shortage of
food supply. It was a chain reaction of the crash of the whole nation’s economy.
It goes without saying that the value of labor force got lower and lower, because
many people were out of work. And for a job, these unemployed people did not need a
nice salary, the only thing they needed was a job with monthly wage, no matter high
or low. From another point of view, the view of investors, the owners, they might
invest more business with low cost labor, because The Economic Recovery Tax
Act(ERTA) of 1981 enacted the largest tax cut in American history and inspired tax
cutting by many other nations in the 1980s. The Economic Recovery Tax Act phased
in a reduction in the top tax rate from seventy percent to fifty percent and this policy
promoted Economic recovery by attracting more investments.
Although 1980s was a terrible period in the United States’ history, her people still
went though it, and made this country stronger than before. The gross demestic
product of United States in 1982 was around three thousands two hundreds billion
dollars, and it rose up to three thousands nine hundreds in next year and kept the
increasing twenty percentage year by year after 1982, the American economy finally
began to enter the economic recovery period. The problem of unemployment still
have not been solved till today, maybe the jobless people become less but it was an
deep-rooted problem to wait for president at the present and in the future to figure out.
Bibliography
Brian, Roach. "History of Taxation in the United States." The Encyclopedia OF
EARTH. N.p., 1 Nov. 2006. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.
Christopher, Byron. "Business: The Idle Army of Unemployed." Time Magazine
(1980): n. pag. Time Magazine. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.
"US Economy 1980s." U.S. Confronts Possibility of Deep Recession. N.p., 16 Oct.
2008. Web. 6 Oct. 2012.
"US Gross Domestic Product GDP History." Gross Domestic Product. Government,
25 Aug. 2006. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.
"1975: Vietnam's President Thieu Resigns." BBC (2005): n. pag. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.
<http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/21/newsid_2935000
/2935347.stm>.