Indiana Social Studies E.5.5
The Standard
Explain frictional, structural, cyclical, and seasonal unemployment, and analyze the impact of unemployment.
2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies · Students explain that because resources are limited, people must make choices, understanding the role that supply, demand, prices, and profits play in a market economy. Key elements of the course include study of scarcity and economic reasoning, supply and demand, market structures, the role of government, national economic performance, the role of financial institutions, economic stabilization, and trade.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify why a person is out of work: job searching, a skills mismatch, a downturn, or the end of a work season. They explain how job loss can affect wages, local sales, and tax revenue.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given four job stories, students name the cause in each and point to the clue that supports their choice. They can trace a layoff from lost wages to fewer purchases at a local store.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may call every layoff a result of a recession, even when a machine has replaced the job. They may mistake the end of a summer job for a skills mismatch, or assume someone between jobs needs retraining. They may overlook effects beyond the worker's household.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Label a graduate searching for work, a cashier replaced by self-checkout, a builder laid off during a recession, and a summer lifeguard seeking winter work. Explain one effect of the builder's job loss on a local store.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs 12 printed job-loss cards to sort into four cause piles, then have them draw one wage-to-store-sales chain.
Ask, "If a factory replaces 30 workers with machines, what happens to families, nearby shops, and town tax receipts?" Have students write three sentences.
Play a four-round match: partners classify a job-seeking graduate, automation-displaced cashier, recession-laid-off builder, and summer lifeguard seeking winter work.
Show a printed summer pool job posting. Have students trace what happens to workers' pay and nearby shop sales when the pool closes.
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Printable E.5.5 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- GE.3.7
Explain the business cycle and the factors that influence it.
- GE.3.4
Explain the role and effect of labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and cooperatives in a given economy.
- GE.5.7
Investigate the effect of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), unemployment, and inflation on economies.
- E.5.4
Explain the causes and effects of business cycles in a market economy.
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