I'm no economist, but I do have an idea that might work. Like I said it might work. I'm sure that there are some issues that I don't know about that could impact my idea, but I think it could work. So here it is.
As of 2007 the U.S population was 301,621,157.
The current unemployment rate as of today 12/5/08 is 6.7%.
If every working American was required to give the U.S. government just $1 a month for 4 or more months and the goverment had to save this money and apply it towards its' debt the U.S could climb out of debt in no time. I've provided the math below.
U.S population 301,621,157 times the unemployment level of 6.7% = $202,086,157
$202,086,157 X 4 Months = $808,344,700 That is almost a trillion dollars.
$202,086,157 X 12 Months = $2,425,033,884
I know that the unemployment rate changes so my numbers will change due to the rise or fall of the population rate and the unemployment rate.
Also I know that people don't want to pay more taxes, but it's only one dollar a month. Obviously the extremely poor do not have to pay.
What do you think?
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
The unemployment rate is not represented like that. Its is not the fraction of US citizen not working.
The unemployment rate is the fraction of the labor force that is looking for a job but not able to find one.
The Labor force is much smaller then the overall population of the US labor force is 151.4 million 2006 est.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world...
so if the unemployment rate is 6.7% then 10.14 million people are out of work.
Plus the BLS defines a person that is employed as anyone who has worked more then 2 hours per week.
So if you made everyone pay one dollar a month for one month then you would get something like
140 million * 4 which is only 560 million dollars
140 million * 12 = 1.68 billion
What are you really going to do with a Billion dollars, you could go to war with Iraq for 1 1/2 days.
The answer has to be conservation, and the efficient allocation of goods and service. Basiclly people have to think about what they buying and why they are buying it.
Sorry, employment isn't that high.
About one third of Americans are babies and children; none of them work.
Retired people don't work.
And the unemployment rate doesn't count all the working-age people who aren't working. Homemakers aren't counted. And people who've given up on finding jobs aren't counted.
There's nowhere NEAR 202 million working Americans.
You could get accurate numbers from
http:www.census.gov in the FactFinder section, or the Labor Dept website.
Interesting idea, though. Thinking is always a good thing to do.
I think it is a good idea. Go ahead and write the president-elect about this. I am not kidding. Not a bad idea at all.