What is your general topic? Has the Recession changed the way Americans use credit?
Into which discipline does your topic fall? (circle one) Political Science History Sociology/Psychology GeographyEconomics Anthropology What is your research question? Has the Recession changed the way Americans use credit? Purpose: This section of your paper/project is used to explain the importance of researching your topic. In this section you must address the following criteria and answer the following questions:
Give background information about your topic.
What are the main issues surrounding your topic?
What are the pros and cons? What negative and positive opinions are held regarding your topic?
What are you trying to discover by completing this project?
What answer do you believe you will find to question?
Why have you chosen to study this subject? Write your purpose below: In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction. It is a general slowdown in economic activity. Macroeconomic indicators such as GDP (gross domestic product), investment spending, capacity utilization, household income, business profits, and inflation fall, while bankruptcies and the unemployment rate rise. The Great Recession—which officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009—began with the bursting of an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble. The resulting loss of wealth led to sharp cutbacks in consumer spending. This loss of consumption, combined with the financial market chaos triggered by the bursting of the bubble, also led to a collapse in business investment. As consumer spending and business investment dried up, massive job loss followed. In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. labor market lost 8.4 million jobs, or 6.1% of all payroll employment. This was the most dramatic employment contraction (by far) of any recession since the Great Depression. By comparison, in the deep recession that began in 1981, job loss was 3.1%, or only about half as severe. Even after the economy stopped contracting in the summer of 2009, its growth has not been nearly strong enough to create the jobs needed simply to keep pace with normal population growth, let alone put back to work the backlog of workers who lost their jobs during the collapse. In October 2010, 16 months after the official end of the recession, the economy still had 5.4% fewer jobs than it did before the recession started. Thus, the Great Recession has brought the worst of both worlds: extraordinarily severe job loss, combined with an extremely sluggish recovery. Job loss during the Great Recession has meant that family incomes have dropped, poverty has risen, and adults as well as children have lost health insurance. The bursting of the housing bubble and the drop in the stock market has meant that family wealth has dropped dramatically, as well. This feature highlights the impact of the Great Recession on the labor market and on working families. I chose this topic to discover more about Americans and America in the job aspect, because when I am looking for job opportunities I want to be informed with the job employment rate pattern. I believe most of the information on this topic that I find will be on the ways the Great Recession changed the way we spend money. Methodology: This section of your paper/project is used to explain the steps that you will take to research your topic. In this section you must address the following criteria and answer the following questions:
What initial research will you do or have you done to gather background information on your topic?
How will you gather new information?
List resources that you will use which include but are not limited to magazines, books, encyclopedias, reference books, documents, newspapers or other materials.
Describe any surveys or interviews that