The Economic Impact of 9/11, in 10 Charts
The attacks and the War on Terror that followed changed a lot of things. But the measurable effect on indicators such as jobs, travel and stocks was mostly temporary.
In many ways, the U.S. recovered quickly from 9/11‘s shattering impact.
Photographer: Doug Kanter/AFP
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the American reaction to them, keep reverberating. This summer’s messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is one obvious after-shock, and it’s clear the impacts go far beyond that.
Much of what seems broken in the U.S. today, journalist Spencer Ackerman writes in his new book “Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump,” can be traced to the actions and reactions of the early 2000s. All over the world, Norwegian defense scholar Thomas Hegghammer contends in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, the surveillance capabilities developed in the wake of the attacks have shifted the balance of power toward governments and away from individuals. The “War on Terror” also accelerated the rise of right-wing violence in the U.S. and elsewhere, American extremism researcher Cynthia-Miller Idriss argues in the same magazine. And so on.