How 9/11 Affected The United States Economy

Economic disaster; this could be the adequate phrase to describe the way 9/11 affected the U.S economy. The terrorist attacks on September 11 were a series of two unexpected attacks to the World Trade Center of New York. At two different times, two different airplanes crashed into both of the twin tower buildings. These two attacks created a variety of impacts, which include heavy economic ones. This research paper will demonstrate that September 11 to a great extent, affected the economy in terms of families, industries, and New York along with the U.S Government.
A variety of industries in New York to a great extent, were economically affected by the September 11 attacks. According Lydia Polgreen, the attack costs the city’s economy 143,000
New York City had to pay for a variety of damages after these attacks. In an article that analyzes the cost of 9/11, by David B. Yerger, different economists study the costs in different aspects. It is stated in this article that the costs sum up to an approximate $171 billion, which divides into 4 different areas: “$27 billion in property damage and rebuilding, $11 billion in rescue and related cleanup, $21-$24 billion, and $109 billion in economic output.”, as written by David B. Yerger. These numbers represent an unexpected use of money from the government. Along with these numbers, the government started receiving less taxes from companies, as they started producing less at the moment; this is the loss of economic output. They also received less taxes from citizens for a period of time, as some people were not receiving income or working for some time. The attacks also made the government raise and improve their defenses, security, and military. Charles Poladian says that, “…the federal government created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and, on November 19, 2001, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act.” These defensive increases cost a lot of money and has been a “primary contributor to ballooning U.S Government debt and deficits”, as explained by Andrew Burger, who is a financial reporter with an MBA on finance. Kimberly Amadeo, a
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in these attacks. These were people that economically sustained their families along life. With the death of the source of income in families, these families stopped receiving income. As economist Herminio Soto explains, for those families who had debts, the death of their income source created many difficulties to repay debts, for example, mortgage debts. Herminio Soto explains how with the uncertainty being present among people, there was a decline in consumer confidence and spending. The decline in spending brought additional impact to families as house prices lowered. The lowering in the real estate market makes prices lower, which means that people would be selling for less than was paid making the repayment of the debt be disrupted. This didn’t only affect the families but financial systems as well. In addition to the topic, in an article written by David B. Yerger it is shown that the unemployment rate after the attacks was assessed by August 2002 to be 6.3%, which is a 1.2% increase since August 2001, which was before the attacks. To sum up, families experienced an impact on their economic state after the September 11