Recession of 2009/Tutorials

United States

Growth rates

(Percentage change at an annual rate )

	2007	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV	2009 I
GDP	2.3	0.9	2.8	-0.5	-6.2
Consumption	2.2	0.9	1.2	-3.8	-4.3
Business investment	6.4	2.4	2.5	-1.7	-21.0
Residential construction	-19.0	-25.5	-13.3	-16.1	-22.2

(Source: US Department of the Treasury [1])

Unemployment rates

(per cent - not seasonally adjusted)

	Jan	Feb	March	April	May	June	July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
2008	5.4	5.2	5.2	4.8	5.2	5.7	6.0	6.1	6.0	6.0	6.5	7.1
2009	8.5	8.9

(Source: US Department of Labor [2])

The United Kingdom economy

Growth rates

(Percentage change at an annual rate )

	2007	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV	2009 I
GDP	3.0	1.6	0.0	-2.8	-6.0
Household expenditure	3.3	3.8	-1.0	-0.8	-2.8
Fixed capital investment	7.2	-11.0	-5.0	-13.8	-8.9

(Source UK National Statistics [3])

International comparisons

GDP growth rates

(per cent change on previous quarter)

	2007 IV	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV
United States	0.0	0.2	0.7	-0.1	-1.0
United Kingdom	0.6	0.4	0.0	-0.6	-1.5
Japan	0.5	0.6	-1.0	-0.5
Germany	0.3	1.4	-0.4	-0.5
France	0.4	0.4	-0.3	0.1

Unemployment rates

(ILO definition, seasonally adjusted)

	2007 IV	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV
United States	4.8	4.9	5.4	6.0	6.9
United Kingdom	5.1	5.1	5.4	5.8
Japan	3.8	3.9	4.0	4.1	4.0
Germany	8.0	7.6	7.4	7.5	7.9
France	7.8	7.6	7.7	7.7	8.0

(Source: OECD)

Public Debt

( % of GDP - 2007 estimates)

Japan	Italy	Greece	France	United States	Netherlands	United Kingdom	Denmark	Ireland	China	Australia
170	104	89.5	63.9	60.8	45.5	43.6	26	24.9	18.4	15.6

(Source: CIA World Factbook [4])