Four years ago...
The stock market collapsed - the housing bubble went pop and the economy tanked.
We were left with a nation plagued by uncertainty. No one knew where the bottom was - if this recession, which had cost us millions of jobs, would quickly turn into a great depression. Millions of Americans had lost their financial security with the stock market dip and even more would eventually lose their homes.
Unemployment, which had held steady throughout much of the late-00s, skyrocketed as more and more Americans lost their jobs.
We went from 5% unemployment in January '08, to over 7% a year later.
As unemployment spiked, the economy started shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs - a month.
When President Obama took office, the stock market was at its lowest level in years, unemployment didn't appear to have a ceiling and the jobs market, well - there appeared to be no floor for the amount of jobs lost. In December '08, a month before Pres. Obama would take the Oath of Office, we lost 800,000 jobs in that month alone. 800,000 - that would be like the entire city of San Francisco vanishing over night. From March '08 to January '09, the American economy lost over three million jobs. Think about that for a second. In less than a year, our economy lost as many jobs as Los Angeles has people.
Four years later, and while we've still got a lot of work to do, the economy is growing again. The stock market, which appeared to have no bottom when Obama took office in '09, has now recorded record-level highs - making back the gains lost under Bush and then some.
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Unemployment? Still high - but, unlike four years ago, it's on a steady decline the last year or so.
It wasn't that long ago, in fact, last year, when some in the media were suggesting we should get comfortable with unemployment above 9% because it was going to last and the thought of anything as low as 8.1% by 2012 seemed damn near impossible.
But unemployment, in part, has shrunk because the jobs are returning. Since early 2010, we've gained jobs every single month - far outpacing the recovery seen the last time the United States was coming out of a recession ('02-'04).
Some will say we're not growing enough. But it's not necessarily about the monthly numbers and about the consistency. Recovery needs to be sustained and fortunately, or hopefully, that's what this economy is doing. There will be lean months, as was the case in April (though, as we found out with revised numbers, not really in March), but the overall trend is still good.
Four years ago, no one knew what the next four years could mean. That uncertainty led to a great deal of concern and while there is concern this go around, I get the sense most believe we've weathered the major storm. It doesn't mean we're content or out of the darkness just yet, but it does mean we've made progress and, four years ago, no one knew whether that was possible.
It was. We've seen a great deal of work accomplished these past four years and I am confident, with another four, we'll be able to continue building a strong and prosperous economy that works for every American. We're not there yet, but we're far closer to achieving that goal than we were four years ago. The fact we were able to do it this fast, when the economy had been devastated like it was, is pretty remarkable to me.
We've done so much, but with so much left to do, we can't go back. We just can't.