Prioritizing Economic Goals

Prioritizing Economic Goals

Distribute the Economic Goals worksheet.

What is the definition of Economics?Display definition on board.

Is the study of choices consumers, businesses and government make to attain their goals, given their scarce resources.

Suppose that your family sets a goal of going to Hershey Park for a week next summer. You would adopt a series of “policies to enable you to accomplish that goal. For example:

When making commitments to other activities throughout the year, family members would remember to keep their calendars clear for that week.
Choosing to set aside a portion of monthly income, or to forego other spending in order to save spending money for Hershey Park.
Assigning family members to monitor Internet travel sites for transportation and hotel reservation deals.

The process of setting goals and adopting policies for a business or our national economy is similar to the process your family used. Like your family, our nation and many companies set goals and priorities and then works toward them.

Review the definitions of the following terms – Goals, Microeconomics, and Macroeconomics. Identify the list of national economic goals and review definitions with students. Have them complete the third column by answering the question (How do the national economic goals relate to him or her as individuals?). Ask some of the students to share his or her answers.

Discuss with the students the compatibility of the various goals, pointing out, for example, that emphasizing freedom may necessitate giving up some security. There are trade-offs involved forcing us to make choices.

Deregulation in 1990s led to the Great Recession of 2009.
Minimum Wage (Equity – higher wages versus Sustainability – amount of jobs)

Ask students to think about their own individual priorities. Rank the economic goals in order from #1 (highest) to #6 (lowest). Optional: Ask students to imagine themselves 20 years from now, would his or her answers be the same. What if we were a collective group (Community) and we had to rank these goals in order to make decisions about policy?

Wrap up: Why is difficult to accomplish all of our economic goals? Even with this limitation, should we still continue to establish goals?

Please list three individual goals that you would like to strive for and then share an example with the class.

Name:______Economic GoalsDate:______

Economics – is the study of choices consumers, businesses, and government make to attain their goals, given their scarce resources.

What is a goal?Guided purpose for our actions.

In economics, individuals, households, businesses, countries and the world set goals so that the respective parties can strive for something and analyze the results, successful or not successful. Most societies share the same basic economic goals listed below. Economics is described in two ways: Microeconomics and Macroeconomics.

Microeconomics – is the study of how individuals, householdsand businessesdeal with money, time and resources.

Macroeconomics – is the study of how a country or the whole world deals with money, time and resources.

Economic Goal / Description for Macroeconomic / How does this goal relate to you as an individual (Microconomics)? / Individual Rank
Economic Freedom / Individual choice is not constrained by government or any other power groups. / “If I want to buy Five Guys, I can do it every night!” / 6
Economic Growth / Wealth of goods and services available to help people in the country live comfortably. Productivity and innovation leads to a higher standard of living. / Trying to find ways to be more productive (building my human capital) to grow economically. / 5
Efficiency / Prevention of waste of the nation’s resources; and getting the most of available resources / I have a gym membership. Do I use it efficiently? / 3
Equity / Fair distribution of wealth and resources. This does not mean that it has to be equal. / Am I providing a fair amount of opportunity for my “twins”. / 4
Economic Security / Citizens have confidence in their ability to support themselves and their families. / Life Insurance, Emergency Fund, etc… / 2
Sustainability and Stability / Prices, jobs, and growth do not fluctuate rapidly and people have the ability to continue actions indefinitely. / All decisions made to try to ensure stability for my family. / 1

By yourselves, brainstorm and list below three goals that you would like to strive for this year.

Learn Basic Economics
Improve Decision Making
Increase Opportunities for Yourself

Name:______Economic GoalsDate:______

Economics –

What is a goal?

Microeconomics – is the study of how individuals, households and businesses deal with money, time and resources.

Macroeconomics – is the study of how a country or the whole world deals with money, time and resources.

Economic Goal / Description for Macroeconomic / How does this goal relate to you as an individual (Microconomics)? / Individual Rank
Economic Freedom / Individual choice is not constrained by government or any other power groups.
Economic Growth / Wealth of goods and services available to help people in the country live comfortably. Productivity and innovation leads to a higher standard of living.
Efficiency / Prevention of waste of the nation’s resources; and getting the most of available resources
Equity / Fair distribution of wealth and resources. This does not mean that it has to be equal.
Economic Security / Citizens have confidence in their ability to support themselves and their families.
Sustainability and Stability / Prices, jobs, and growth do not fluctuate rapidly and people have the ability to continue actions indefinitely.

By yourselves, brainstorm and list below three goals that you would like to strive for this year.