The recent proclamation of the economic recession being over seems dubious at best, as numerous sectors are nevertheless depressed. Technically speaking, a recession ends when the economy stops shrinking. That said, economic sectors like employment, household prosperity and real estate are still depressed. Net worth, or household wealth, is the amount of debt owed subtracted from the amount of assets. Things like investments are involved as assets. The entire of all credit cards, unsecured loans, or debt is subtracted from the whole value of assets. It could be complicated to get the value of all the things an individual owns. That said, once that is added up, net value is easy to figure out. However, recent economic data has just a little to say about this. Net value for Americans is at a particularly low point.
Bad news for household riches
The last couple of years have been an economic roller coaster. Household wealth has been via those ups and downs too. The summer has not been good to many individuals. Household riches took a serious tumble. The Federal Reserve, as outlined by CNN, lately reported that after all debts, the net worth among all Americans had dropped 2.8 percent. Over $1.5 trillion of instant money disappeared. The bulk of the shrinking dollar value was lost within the stock market. Mutual funds and retirement savings accounts were also negatively affected. The bulk of losses occurred in stock markets. Individual stocks overall lost $912 billion over the summer.
The little real estate market that could
Employment and housing are nevertheless the largest problem areas. Real estate, despite the bottom having practically fallen out, is slowly working its way back up. There is really just a little more value in property overall. Housing added $46 billion over the summer. It is a gain of only .3 percent. At least it is something, though. That said, it doesn’t make up for the losses. Between 2007 and 2009, housing as an industry lost $17 trillion. It seems housing and employment are the areas that really need extra money, however those statistics have not seemed to benefit at all from the cash advanced from stimulus programs.
Recovery at a snails’ speed
Some good news has come out of all this, though. According to USA Today, stock markets have already begun to gain lost value back. A double dip recession doesn’t seem likely, as slow however steady recovery is expected.
CNN
money.cnn.com/2010/09/17/news/economy/household_net_worth/index.htm
USA Today
usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-09-17-net-worth_N.htm
