Economics+Conditions

**﻿**  The U.S.Economy lost more than 8 million jobs during the recession starting in December 2007. The national unemployment rate rose to over 10 percent, which is twice as high as it was at the start of the recession. Many researchers have noted that the labor market experienced its deepest downturn since the postwar era in the recent recession (Elsby, Hobijn and Sahin, 2010). Sparking the recession was the housing crisis -- housing prices dropped since reaching their peak in mid-2007.The national housing price index experienced the largest decline on record (Federal Housing Finance Agency, 2009). Home foreclosures also rose rapidly over the past few years. In the one period for May 2010, there were 323,000 foreclosure filings, representing an alarming 1 out every 400 housing units in the United States (Realtytrac, 2010). There were also failures that have resulted from poor management decisions, an overabundance of harmful government regulation, an incompetence of legislative oversight, and greedy demands from unions.
 * Overall Economic Conditions **