Finance – U.S. Economy

Today, the US (and global) economy is experiencing a major slowdown in economic activity. Experts say that the unemployment rate to could rise to 30 percent by summer. The government deficit is expected to rise to nearly $4 trillion this year. The deficit will increase because of discretionary measures taken by Congress, but also because of non-discretionary adjustments in federal spending, driven by the automatic stabilizers. MMT advocates the implementation of a federal job guarantee (JG), which it argues would create a powerful new automatic stabilizer. Write an essay, explaining how the fiscal outcome is driven (largely) by changing conditions in the real economy, and describe how the anticipated spike in unemployment could have been avoided with a federal JG in place.