Influx

With so many contradictory data points it’s very tough to get a definitive answer that explains exactly where the economy is currently “at”.

I thought this chart was a pretty good summary of just how bad it got in 2008-2009 and where we are now.

It’s a graph from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis and it shows personal incomes less transfer payments.

So, what does it tells us?

1. The 2008-2009 recession was serious- no other recession since 1959 even came close to impacting personal incomes

2. From looking at where personal incomes are now- we are currently in a worse situation that the recessions of 75, 81 and the dot-com bust.

Net- 2008 is looking like the worst thing to the economy since the Great Depression and we’ve been climbing steeply out of that trough since January 2009, but we’ve still got a long way to go.