Politics & Government
SOUND OFF: Better Than You Were Four Years Ago?
The answer to this question around the country will have as much influence as any over who wins the U.S. presidency in November.
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.
Massachusetts's unemployment rate was 5.8 percent four years ago, spiked to 8.7 percent by the following October and is at 6.3 percent in the latest figures. That is below the national 8.1 percent unemployment rate.
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On this four-year anniversary, incumbent Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney are nearing the home stretch of the Presidential election. No single factor will define such a complex process as selection of a president, though none may be greater than the simple question: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
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