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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>.