U. S. Economic Indicators for period 6/30/08-6/30/09 - Essay Example

These statistics are used to measure economic performance of a country during a span of time. It is useful for economic analysis and future predictions of an economy. Some of the most common economic indicators include gross domestic product (GDP), Consumer Price Index (CPI), Unemployment Rate, Housing starts, personal income, retail sales, and durable goods orders’. There are specific departments for finding these statistics in every country. In the U.S., there are four major departments for this purpose: The Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Census Bureau, The United States Bureau of Economic Analysis, and The National Bureau of Economic Research.

All of these departments carry out surveys on different sectors of the economy and provide different economic indicators to help the government evaluate its economic policies. We will analyze the above mentioned economic indicators of the U.S. economy during the period June 2008 to June 2009. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. GDP started a downfall in the third quarter of 2008 (2009). It declined at a rate of 2.7% in the third quarter of 2008, which means that it decreased from the preceding quarter, that is; the second quarter of 2008.

Throughout the period of our concern, the U.S. GDP was on a constant decline, implying that the economy is suffering and is in bad shape. The U.S. GDP fell the most in the first quarter of 2009, when it declined by -6.4%. GDP is probably the most important economic indicator of all. It has a direct relationship with the economy. If the GDP improves, the economy improves, and vice versa. In this case, it is quite evident that during the period of June 2008 to June 2009, the U.S. economy suffered heavily and it indicates that it will still be some time before the economy starts to improve.

However, after carefully analyzing the data about GDP, we can conclude that we might have reached the bottom as the GDP declined slightly in the second