In this article by Sabri Ben (2006), it stipulates how the U.S is lagging behind in the expansion and maintenance of infrastructure. As stipulate in the article, an analysis done by McKinsey revealed that “there are a lot of really high return infrastructure projects the U.S. is not building right now and as a result we’re falling behind the rest of the world”. McKinsey estimated that the U.S. should spend 0.7% of the GDP on infrastructure.

Investment in infrastructure will create jobs. Currently, the U.S. has an unemployment rate of 5.5%. if the government decided to increase investment in infrastructure, it can reduce the unemployment rates.  Employment is a major measure in the performance of the economy (Ben, 2016). When the country has a high unemployment rates, most of the people have no income and thus poor. Most of these people will end up being homeless our applying for the social welfare program. This puts a strain on the resources.

If these resources were used to employ people in the infrastructure, their life would be much easier than the social welfare program. Funding for infrastructure can be complicated. Politically, different people want to get credit for any project especially when it requires state, local and federal support. When the federal government allocates funds for infrastructure, it is given to states and localities that get no credit for the project (Ben, 2016). To curb this, states and local governments generate policies that make it hard for the federal government to funds infrastructure projects.

This is bad for the economy in that it increases the unemployment levels not to mention that it hinders development. Development in infrastructure opens up other sectors of the economy such as manufacturing which depends on the infrastructures available for transport of raw materials and finished goods.

Reference

Ben, S. (2016). U.S. lags in infrastructure spending. Marketplace.org. Retrieved 24 June 2016, from http://www.marketplace.org/2016/06/20/world/us-lags-infrastructure-spending

 
Do you need an Original High Quality Academic Custom Essay?