Answer: It was the severity of the Great Recession as Barack Obama stepped into the White House in January 2009, with the economy losing almost 3.6 million jobs the previous year and already shedding jobs at a rate of 800,000 a month. Eight years later, with over 200,000 jobs generated in January 2017 and the unemployment rate at 4.8 percent, Donald Trump inherited an economy well on the rebound. There is a different problem facing the economy now than in 2009. Aggressive bank lending activities in the so-called "sub-prime" mortgage industry and the resulting crash of the housing sector fueled the slowdown. This was a financial crisis of the sort that the economy has experienced in the past. Now, with the financial fundamentals currently very favorable, the economy faces something of a health crisis. In reaction to the first wave of the pandemic, low interest rates, strong personal investments and the passage of a $2 trillion stimulus package in March have blunted much of the impacts of a near-national lockout that took place in March.
