Economic means relating to the production, distribution, and use of goods, services, and money in a society or region. When a newspaper reports on economic growth, it's describing whether businesses are making more products, more people have jobs, and whether the overall wealth of a country is increasing or decreasing.

The economy is the system of how people make, trade, and spend money and resources. Economic decisions happen constantly: when your parents decide whether to buy a new car or save money, when a company chooses where to build a factory, or when a government decides how much to spend on schools and roads. These choices affect jobs, prices, and what goods are available.

You'll often see the word economic paired with other terms: economic policy (rules governments make about money and business), economic inequality (differences in wealth between people), or economic opportunity (chances to earn money and improve your situation). The word helps distinguish money and resource issues from other kinds: a town might face both economic problems (like factory closures) and social problems (like disagreements between neighbors), and solving them requires different approaches.

The study of how economies work is called economics, and people who specialize in understanding these systems are called economists.