How healthy is the economy?
Over the next term we shall be looking at the economy in terms of important indicators of success eg: * How high is inflation (ie how fast are prices rising?) * How many people are unemployed? * How fast is GDP growing ( ie are we producing more goods and services than in previous years?- this is called economic growth) * What is our ‘balance of trade’- ie is the value of our exports ( the goods and services we sell abroad) greater than the value of our imports ( the goods and services we buy from abroad)

1) Unemployment- use this link to help you

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13436252

a) How many people are currently classed as ‘unemployed’
29.24 million b) Does the level of unemployment vary between regions? Why do you think this is? Possibly, this may be because different regions may have better educational facilities and job offers. c) Why do think unemployment is such as serious economic problem? Think about this from the point of view of the unemployed people themselves and the point of view of the government. Unemployment is such a big problem because people can’t find available jobs. The government are trying to provide jobs but there just there just aren’t enough available to provide. Unemployment to the government means that they have to spend more on benefits for the people that are jobless and currently, they are trying to save as much money as possible. d) Why do you think some workers lose their jobs and become unemployed? Workers can lose their jobs and become unemployed due to government spending cuts. If the government cuts jobs from the public sector, then people become jobless and are unemployed. Once someone is unemployed, it is hard for them to get a job. e) How do you think the government could help unemployed people to become employed?
The government could help by reducing the amount of spending cuts from the public sector. Also, if the government gave a large firm in a big industry a subsidy, then they will be able to employ more workers. The government needs to also reduce the amoutn of benefits available to average workers. Some people get higher benefits than actual job pay- this provides no incentive for people to work.

2) Inflation- use this link to help you http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13421614 Inflation means a rise in the general level of prices. Eg if inflation is 4% this means that prices of goods and services, on