Society & Economics
The Great Recession's defining year: stimulus, auto-industry bankruptcies, the Madoff sentencing, and disasters from L'Aquila to Xinjiang.
Every Society & Economics article in the 2009 knowledge base. Use the topic filters to narrow by sub-topic.
CIT Group bankruptcy
CIT Group, a major commercial and consumer finance company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on No...
Onset of the Greek Government-Debt Crisis
In October 2009 Greece's newly elected government revised the projected budget deficit to roughly...
2009 US Unemployment Rate Peaks at 10% in October
The US unemployment rate reached 10.2% in October 2009, the highest level in 26 years, marking th...
2009 Samoa Earthquake and Tsunami
On September 29, 2009, a magnitude-8.1 submarine earthquake near the Tonga Trench generated a Pac...
Uyghur Unrest in Xinjiang
On July 5, 2009, deadly ethnic riots erupted in Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autono...
US Housing Foreclosures Accelerate Through 2009
A record 2.82 million US homes faced foreclosure in 2009, representing a 21% increase from 2008 a...
Cash for Clunkers (Car Allowance Rebate System)
The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), popularly known as "Cash for Clunkers," was a United Stat...
Bernie Madoff Sentenced for Ponzi Scheme
On 29 June 2009, financier Bernard "Bernie" Madoff was sentenced in the US District Court for the...
General Motors Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
General Motors Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankru...
Tropical Storm Aila 2009
Tropical Storm Aila struck southern Bangladesh and West Bengal, India on May 25, 2009, killing at...
2009 Financial System Stress Tests and Bank Recapitalization
The U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department conducted stress tests on major banks (May 2009)...
Cyclone Nargis Humanitarian Aftermath (2009)
Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta on the night of May 2–3, 2008, making landfall ne...
Chrysler Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Chrysler LLC and 24 affiliated subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Uni...
2009 L'Aquila Earthquake
At 03:32 local time (01:32 UTC) on April 6, 2009, an earthquake measuring magnitude 6.3 on the mo...
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (A...
FDIC-insured bank failures surge in 2009
A total of 140 FDIC-insured banks failed in 2009, the highest annual total since the Savings & Lo...