# What economy do you feel is harder, the post 2008 recession or the modern economy

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-economy-do-you-feel-is-harder-the-post-2008-recession-or-the-modern-economy/1034054>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 22, 2026, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-economy-do-you-feel-is-harder-the-post-2008-recession-or-the-modern-economy/1034054 "2026-10-22T03:55:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2026, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-economy-do-you-feel-is-harder-the-post-2008-recession-or-the-modern-economy/1034054/22 "2026-10-22T18:09:13Z")

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> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> It’s a hard question for me to answer because it reflects two completely different life stages. I entered grad school in 2009 and exited in 2011.

That was my thought on this topic too. Eighteen years is a long time. I’m guessing a lot of Dopers were working then and are now retired. Younger GenX and Millennials are in wildly different spots in their lives.

For me, I was 29 and 3 years in to home ownership. In fact I was one of those people who got a home loan in 2005 who probably shouldn’t have, but I actually made it work and didn’t default. I had no investments, no savings, no debt aside from my mortgage. I just hunkered down and living life. The only scrambling I had to do was to re-finance before my ARM kicked in, and I did it with 5 years to spare at a very good rate.

This time everything is different about my life status (well, I still am single with no kids). Everything about the economy is just more…all-encompassing now.

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**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2026, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-economy-do-you-feel-is-harder-the-post-2008-recession-or-the-modern-economy/1034054/23 "2026-10-22T18:19:03Z")

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In 2008 I was working in New York City for a nonprofit consumer credit counseling agency. It was absolute mayhem. The Bankruptcy department staff tripled, and we saw a high volume of housing counseling calls. A lot of them came from immigrants who had no idea what they were getting into and couldn’t even read the letters from the mortgage company.

I guess it forced some perspective on how the economy was personally affecting me. I wasn’t really aware of the future consequences, say, of the high interest rates on our exorbitant student loans. I had been planning to go to grad school and when the economy went to shit I figured this was the best time to go, because I wouldn’t have to worry about finding a job for those two years, and maybe it would be better by the time I graduated.

Where I personally saw the biggest difference though was from the time I entered undergrad in 2001 to the time I graduated in 2007. I entered college with a set of assumptions about what a college education could get me, and by the time I graduated it was a completely different reality. That was the rug-pull moment for me.

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