Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog

You read it here first: we are now in a double-dip recession. Economists declared that the Great Recession started in 2007 and ended in June 2009. But no one who sees an empty strip mall, a foreclosed house or an unemployed friend believes it. The legal effects will spread though all levels of your daily life. Here’s the evidence:

• Jobs: the US unemployment rate has averaged over 9% for more than two years. Fewer jobs mean less consumer spending, which means the recession continues.
• Debt: 721,000 consumer bankruptcies were filed from January to June and now the numbers are climbing, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
• Real estate: 1 in every 611 homes received a foreclosure filing in July 2011. The situation is the worst in California, followed by Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois, according to Realtytrac.com

"If it feels like a recession, it is a recession," according to Michael D. Siegel of Siegel & Siegel PC in New York, who is the moderator of the New York Bankruptcy law forum at Lawyers.com. The President’s newly-proposed American Jobs Act has already hit partisan opposition. So as the economy worsens here’s what it means to you personally:

To read the top Top 10 Ways the Recession Will Affect You visit the Lawyers.com blog at http://bit.ly/q2qFzO.