Stimulate The Economy

You know what's going to happen in your country, the black market, under the table market is going to boom. You will get offered different costs on everything, paying cash up front will be the cheapest way to buy. We went through that up north big time a few years ago until the government realized we were smarter then them. source

The clash for clunkers program and its after math canceled itself out. Sure there were many cars sold during the program, but for a time after, dealerships had the lowest sales ever. So what they gained in one month, they lost the next because of the lack of business. source

Pretty simple, government needs to stop fucking spending like a drunken sailor in a whore house. It doesn't take rocket science to know you need to spend within your means. source

For the Terran economy, the best you can do, at least until you finish one of the later plotlines, is to add sector traders. Once they level up to 6, reissue the sector trader command to turn them into local traders with a 'jump' range of two. Place them every two or three sectors, so they overlap a bit, and the Terran economy will slowly improve. I did this in my Terran start game, and after a while, I started seeing missile and weapon fabs reappear, since there was now sufficient resources available. The Terran NPC traders are rather pathetic at their jobs. source

Only if you couple it with stronger policies against illegal foreign workers. Many of the trade jobs are being filled by illegal foreign workers at rates that a high-school graduate wouldn't dream of taking - especially if he had is apprenticeship. source