EconExtra #1: Supply and Demand in the world of Covid-19
EconExtra will be a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
The Issue/Event
Is there anyone reading this post that did NOT have trouble finding toilet paper in the last six months, especially in the early days of the pandemic? This first post will cover supply and demand, focusing on the dynamics of markets...
Question of the Day (Updated): Can you name ONE of the five most valuable NFL franchises?
Football season is upon us again! Let's see what NFL teams are worth the most.
Answer:
Dallas Cowboys: $5.7 billion
New England Patriots: $4.4 billion
New York Giants: $4.3 billion
Los Angeles Rams: $4 billion
San Francisco 49ers: $3.8 billion
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Questions:
What factors do you think drive the value of a sports franchise?
Do you or your friends spend money to support your favorite...
Reading List for August 28-30
Wow, the end of August is here! (Not quite sure if I should add "already" or "finally" to the end of that sentence.) This week we have something for everyone, plus lots of Economic News.
Investing
Big news this week is the shake up on the Dow, triggered in part by Apple’s 4 for 1 stock split. Read about who is now in and who is now out! (There will be no more tigers in the Dow “tank”) This is such big news, I leave you three options for the details! (CNBC) (WAPO)...
EdPuzzle Thursday: Loose Change & REITs
EdPuzzle is a great platform to test for knowledge while students watch a video and learn remotely. We will be releasing new EdPuzzle videos here on the blog each week so that your students can answer questions that are directly embedded within engaging videos. In light of the current pandemic, we will also be adding current event videos from Two Cents when relevant. So, on Thursday over the next few weeks, look for a combination of unit specific and current event EdPuzzle videos!
This...
What's New With Investing - 2020
This update is dominated by the impact Covid-19 has had on the investing this year.
Why is the stock market, after initial chaos at the beginning of the pandemic, not reflecting the downturn in the economy? What should investors consider in terms of diversifying, rebalancing, and retirement savings? And what about gold?
The NYSE president explained at the end of May that the “market” as represented by the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial Index is a) forward looking...
Reading List for July 24-26
Economics of the Pandemic
New jobless claims increased this past week to over 1.4 million (1.3 million last week), stopping a 15-week decline. The biggest jumps were in the states where Covid is spiking. This is the 18th week with new jobless claims over one million. (CBS) (Yahoo Finance)
Gig workers who cobble together multiple jobs to make ends meet are often ineligible for unemployment insurance when work dries up. (NYT)
The Federal moratorium on eviction of renters expires today, along with...
What's New With Insurance--2020
Auto Insurance
Undoubtedly, people are driving less during the pandemic. Logic would suggest you should be paying less for your auto insurance. Many companies pro-actively decided to send their policyholders’ rebates or credits for lower usage early on in the pandemic (April and May). (Check out Consumer Reports for a list of what their twenty top-rated companies are doing.)
But you should not be satisfied with just those rebates. Several recent articles suggest you call your insurance...
Reading List for July 18-20
Personal Finance/Managing Credit
How many of you actually balance your checkbook these days? Emily Guy Birken wrote an article for Forbes explaining how to and why you should balance your checkbook in this digital age.
The CFPB examines “credit builder loans” and determines them to be a good way to help consumers build credit. (My Ches Co)
FICO unveils a new “resilience score,” which looks at different elements of a person’s credit history (beyond the credit...
Reading List for July 10-12
Income and Budgeting (pandemic-related)
A survey by Bankrate conducted in late June yielded some dire if not unexpected statistics about the impact of the pandemic on incomes.
49% of those polled said the pandemic has negatively impacted their income.
Of those negatively impacted, only 17% were back to normal at the time of the survey, and 59% feel it will take longer than three months to recover.
45% were not impacted.
This WSJ (subscription) article has lots of great statistics/graphs...
Reading List for the 4th of July weekend
By Beth Tallman
|
Jul 03, 2020
|
Current Events, Economics, Investing, Personal Finance, Credit Scores
Here is your holiday weekend reading list—stay safe people!!!!
Economics
The economy added 4.8 million jobs through the week of June 12, higher than expected. (CNN) (New York Magazine) There are several reasons we shouldn’t yet be celebrating:
The economy is still down 14.7 million jobs
Another 1.4 million filed for unemployment last week
Continuing unemployment claims are still at close to 20 million ...
Reading List for June 26-28
Current Events-Stimulus Checks
QOD: What are most people spending their stimulus checks on? Answer: Household expenses. According to a Census Bureau Household Pulse survey, 85.5% answered this way. Of those earning between $75,000and $99,000 who got a prorated check, checks were more likely be used to pay down debt or saved.
If you have a family member in a nursing home, you might want to be sure the nursing home didn’t try to pocket your loved one’s check. (WAPO-1).
The...
Reading List for June 19-21
Economics
Another 1.5 million people filed unemployment claims this past week. The important and telling statistic is the continuing unemployment claims, which have remained above 20 million since late April. (The Street)
The recovery in Retail Sales has been uneven, according to the National Retail Federation CEO. (CNBC)
The market took the retail sales figure as positive news. (MarketWatch)
NPR breaks down retail spending by income level. Folks at lower income levels are spending whatever...
Question of the Day (Update): How Do People Decide What Credit Card To Get?
Answer: Rewards!
Excerpt from the Survey:
Generationally, 33% of millennials (ages 23-38) and 34% of Gen Xers (ages 39-54) say APR is the most important factor when deciding which credit card to apply for, compared with 24% of baby boomers (ages 55-73), the survey found.
Boomers are more likely to say rewards or a card’s annual fee is the most important factor — 40% picked rewards as the top factor, compared with 29% of millennials and 31% of Gen Xers, and 24% of boomers...
Question of the Day (Update): How Do People Pay For Things?
This Federal Reserve of San Francisco report is chock-full of graphs about payment preferences gathered from their 2018 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice. With so many graphs to choose from, I thought this one could kick-start a great discussion:
Just to orient you as to what is being measured here, this graph focuses on the number of transactions rather than the actual value. So, while the percentage of cash transactions might seem high, most of these transactions were for small...
Reading List for June 5-7
Current Events
Of Dollars and Data explains the racial wealth gap mentioned in Tim’s post on NGPF yesterday. WaPo tracks the gap back to 1968…and there has been little change.
Economics
After Thursday’s news that another 1.9 million people files for unemployment last week (AP), today’s unemployment rate announcement stunned most economists, going down to 13.3% when it was expected to go up as high as 20% (Forbes). The recovery of 2.5 million jobs added from...
Teacher Accounts
To get access to NGPF answer keys, assessments, and teacher-only resources: create a FREE Teacher Account
