Politics & Government
YOUR TURN: Better Off Than 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% four years ago, spiked to 8.7% by the following October and is at 6.3% in the latest figures. That is below the national 8.1% 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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