Since 2008, the tutor has listened for economic news.  While it doesn’t often arise in tutoring, economic performance is important across to the board.

In 2008, the US gross public debt, which I’d just call “government debt”, was around 64.8% of GDP (ieconomics.com).  The Eurozone situation wasn’t too different, at 66.2% (tradingeconomics.com). Over here, we might suspect the US got hit worse in 2008 than Europe did; I’m not saying that’s true, or even knowable. What we can do is look over some of today’s numbers from both places to get a sense of the fallout.

Today, the US government debt is at 102% GDP, while the Eurozone’s is at 90.9%. From that point of view, Europe has fared better since 2008 – around 35% better.

Looking at “real” deficit, the US continues to lag the EU. The true US government financing of its economy, according to the oecd, is currently 5.1% of GDP, while its GDP growth is 2.2%. The figures, both being percent of GDP, sum to progress of -2.9%. The Eurozone’s financing of its economy is 2.6% GDP, with GDP growth of 0.8%, suggesting progress of -1.8%. In 2015, the US should match the Eurozone at -1.2% progress, but by 2016, the Eurozone takes the lead again with -0.2% to the US -1.0%.

Regarding unemployment, the US is expected to beat the EU by over 5% in all three of 2014, 2015, and 2016. In 2014, the US unemployment rate is estimated at 6.2% to Europe’s 11.4%. In both 2015 and 2016, the European unemployment rate is expected to exceed the US rate by 5.5%.

While deficit and debt hurt a country’s economy, unemployment may menace it even more because it can damage the human capital. The worker in the US, for now, seems to be in a more optimistic position. Of course, the US has always prided itself on such a premise.

I’ll be discussing the complex comparison of these different economies in future posts:)

Sources:

ieconomics.com

tradingeconomics.com

oecd

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.