The Impact of Inflation-Recession on Families in Cities

Abstract

The United States is now undergoing its most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression of the thirties. We are currently experiencing a staggering rate of inflation, well up into the double digits (at this writing, pressing 15 percent a year). At the same time, contrary to all economic theory, we are experiencing a severe recession, as the unemployment rate has risen above 7 percent and the Gross National Product has steadily declined, sure symptoms of a recession that might well mushroom into a full-scale depression. This double bind of rampant inflation and recession has given rise to a new coinage by economists, “stagflation,” or even more dramatically, “slumpflation.”