Ten years later and the economic effects of 9/11 still stunning

By Dian Vujovich

It has been a decade since the devastation of 9/11 rocked our world. For many this past decade has been a horrible one filled with losses of one type or another including loss of lives and personal finances. For others it has been a hugely profitable one. No matter what your personal experiences have been, one thing is confirmed: For the past 10 years the markets have not been stagnant.

For some reason I had the notion that 9/11 marked the beginning of America’s slippery financial slope downwards. Of course I blamed the terrorists for that. But after some research, I realized that 2001 didn’t start the year out in good stead. The dot-com bubble in 2000, for instance, wiped up 50-75 percent of all of the fantastic growth we’d seen in the 1990s. By 2001, however, our economy was worsening and unemployment and businesses were failing. All of which resulted in a recession. A recession that began in March 2001 ended eight months later in November and often gets overshadowed because of the memories of 9/11.

Today, with over 40 million people receiving food stamps and our employment rate at 9.1 percent (likely higher if you ask me) here are a few bits and pieces about how the employment rate and the DJIA have changed in the last 10 years.

First unemployment.

We all know that people need to work to keep America and the markets humming. To that end, here’s a look at how the unemployment figures have changed since 2001.

-In September of 2001, our unemployment rate stood at 5 percent. In that same month one year later it had grown to 5.7 percent. By September 2003, the unemployment rate had moved up to 6.10 percent.

In the following years, September unemployment figures ranged from a low of 4.5 percent in 2006 to a high of 9.8 percent five years later in 2009.

As for the market, here’s a review of some of the DJIA’s highs and lows since 9/11/01:

-On the Friday before 9/11, the DJIA closed at 9,605.85– off over15 percent since May 21st of that year.

-On September 17,2001, the day the markets reopened, the DJIA closed at 8,920.7. That figure reflected the largest dollar loss in the history of the DJIA, at that time..

-By September 21st, the DJIA had lost all of the gains it had made since July 3, 1997.

-October 9, 2007 was the first time that the DJIA closed over 14,100. That close represented a gain of 94 percent since the Dow’s closing low five years earlier of 6,878 on October 9, 2002.

-On September 9, 2011 the DJIA closed at 10.992.13.