Assignment: The Key Concepts in Economics
Jennifer McDonald
Professor Camille Castorina
ECO 100 - Principles of Economics
February 28th 2016

The Key Concepts in Economics The economic article that I analyzed is “Unemployment rate falls to 5.1 percent, but Americans are not finding pay increases,” from The Washington Post, written by Chico Harlan and Ylan Q. Mui. The key points of this article discuss a possible slight increase in interest rates, the decrease in the unemployment rate, non-management employees’ wages not increasing, and economic uncertainty in China. This possibility of uneven growth in the economy is causing the stock market to become uncertain (Harlan & Mui, 2015).
With unemployment and the price of oil being so low the economy should be growing, but with wages not increasing this could be the cause of the uncertainty in the markets. This could also be due to the last financial crisis that economy is still trying to recover from. Job growth and inflation are linked, if more people are employed prices for goods and services go up do to consumption, but even with job growth consumers are not making purchases, this can be due in part to the wage stagnation (Harlan & Mui, 2015). Another factor to the slow rise in inflation, could be a global economic slowdown which could be due in part to a decline in China’s economy; this could cause ripples in other nations’ economies now and in the future. Which could further lower prices of oil, other imports and exported goods from China, this could cause more issue with the stock market. These are all indications of a weaker global economy, increasing the uncertainty of economic growth and inflation forecasts for economists (Harlan & Mui, 2015). Lastly, this article points out the effects that industries have on the economy, the slow recovery from the financial crisis