On this day, September 11th, exactly 20 years ago there was a tragic terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. With 2,996 casualties this was an absolutely unnecessary act of violence that ruined the lives of thousands of families.

However there was another devastating consequence that should be acknowledged, the economic effects. Because of the destruction caused on US soil, there was a massive loss in the stock market, businesses, property damages, and the nation’s entire economy in general.

In the stock market alone the loss was incalculable. That is the amount of damage that one day caused to not only the US stock market, but even markets across the world.

As a senior at Diamond Bar High School, Nathan Kang says, “I believe that the economy was really affected negatively as the stock market saw a decline.

The damages caused by the terrorist attacks would have also caused tons of money to be used in repairing buildings / insurance for those who were injured.”

In just one day of the NYSE trading, the market had a 7.1% loss, which was a record at the time for the most value lost in a single day, and at the end of the first week, 14% was lost.

The S&P index also fell 11.6%, and the total estimated value lost was 1.4 trillion.

As expected, the hardest hit companies were airlines such as American Airlines and United Airlines.

As Jacob Kim, a senior from Rowland High School, says, “In terms of how 9/11 affected the economy, I feel like it was by causing major damage in the stock market. People won’t be able to purchase a lot because of how poor the economy is after repairing the damage from 9/11.”

Also, as a result of the attacks on 9/11 huge amounts of damage were destroyed, both government and personal.

Obviously, all the individuals who lost something of value suffered because of that loss, but also the government lost billions in damages.

Just to list a few, the civilian aircraft cost was 385 million, portion of the pentagon was 1 billion, cleanup costs were %1.4 billion, infrastructure damage was 10 - 13 billion, federal emergency fund was 40 billion, there were 83,000 lost jobs, and !17 billion lost in wages, unrecoverable property lost was 21.8 billion, and the list goes on.

These losses caused a domino effect which resulted in tens of thousands of non direct victim families to suffer and experience heavy losses.

These facts just add on to the horrible situation that occurred on that fateful day.

Not only were victims and their families directly affected, but the lives of almost every American were changed in some negative way due to the crashing economy.

Ryan Lee

Sunny Hills High School / 12th Grade

<Ryan Lee Sunny Hills High School 12th Grade>