Business & Tech
Are You Better Off Than Four Years Ago?
Massachusetts home sales are up and unemployment below national average.
Exactly four years ago this month, the bottom dropped out of the U.S. economy.
Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008. The next day the Federal Reserve announced a bailout of AIG. Bad news continued to pile up almost daily, with the stock market collapsing and millions of jobs vanishing.
No single factor will define such a complex process as selection of a president, but none might be greater than the simple question: Are you better off than four years ago?
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In Massachusetts, the state unemployment rate in August was 6.3 percent, up from 6.2 percent in July. Unemployment in the Commonwealth peaked at 8.7 percent in August of 2009. Nationwide, unemployment was at 8.1 percent in August 2012.
Sales of single family homes in Massachusetts in August 2012 saw a 20 percent increase from August 2011, according to the Warren Group.
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“One more month of strong home sales confirm speculation that the housing market recovery is underway,” Warren Group chief executive Timothy M. Warren Jr. said in a statement.
Are you better off than you were four years ago? Or is your financial life the same or worse? Can you credit a presidential administration with business' success or failure or is the state of business left to business leaders? Let us know by posting a comment in the comments section below.
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