It’s no surprise that our country is still struggling with economic conditions, even with the “end of the recession” in June 2009. We’re great at listing the problems associated with these downfalls, but where are the solutions needed to fix them?

In the Wall Street Journal article by Jon Hilsenrath and Conor Dougherty, we discover the central pest that is hurting our economy is household indebtedness. During the economic peak back in 2007, overall, families borrowed an astounding 127% of their annual income to finance personal goods. That has now resulted in high debt. In the economic cycle, there will be economic peaks and lows, no matter what statistics may present. Americans were negligent in realizing that in 2007. They didn’t understand that they would be accountable for all that spending. Little did they know that the worst economic recession to occur since The Great Depression would closely be approaching.

According to economist Dana Saporta, “to get back to a 1990s debt-to-income ratio of 84%, households would either need to pay down another $3.3 trillion of debt, or see their incomes rise $3.9 trillion. That’s equivalent to about nine years’ worth of income growth in normal times.”

Sure, there have been some improvements, such as increasing corporate profits, but that’s not doing any good for low-income people, who need that money and are suffering the most in this recovery battle. Because the biggest problem has been blamed on the consumers, it won’t be as easy to recover, and therefore, it is up to us to get back on track, though it will be a slow process.

In reality, consumers aren’t to be blamed. Normal working class citizens aren’t entirely knowledgeable or aware of economic standards and many of them have been cheated by big businesses and unclear regulations. What’s the government’s next step? Time is a-wasting.