Final answer:
Scarcity is the central economic problem when resources are insufficient to produce everything that people desire, necessitating choices and trade-offs.
Step-by-step explanation:
The lack of enough resources to produce everything people want is a central economic problem known as scarcity.
Scarcity is a condition where there are not enough resources available to satisfy all the desires and needs of consumers. Because of scarcity, societies must make choices about what to produce and how to allocate resources.
This situation is often depicted using a concept called the production possibilities curve, which demonstrates the trade-offs between different choices and the concept of opportunity cost, which represents the value of the next-highest-valued alternative use of that resource.