Well there are two of us right here in the comment section. I had a great job at a startup online retailer. They had a good business model, it was a great place to work.

We had been beating our sales projections and were only a couple months away from being profitable when the Sept 11 attacks happened. Within two weeks, our VC funding stopped and we were all out of jobs because the company owners had to choose between paying rent and paying us. They chose to pay us all severance, bless them for that.

Thankfully I was young, didn't own a house, didn't have kids. But a lot of my colleagues did.

As someone who was getting a comp sci degree at the time, a huge percentage of my cohort could not find jobs in any IT position, let alone programming, so they ended up taking what they could get. A couple years later when companies started hiring again, no one wanted them because they hadn't worked in the industry and their degree was stale (which is bs, they were just able to hire much more experienced people for the same salary). Most of those people then ended up paying off student loans for degrees they never used.

Meanwhile, those who could stayed in school flooding the market with Masters and PHD candidates which raised the bar for all coming after.

That still affects hiring practices to this day.

Are you maybe too young to know people who were actually working at the time. Obviously the life of a high schooler wasn't very affected.

I'd reason that has more to do with your circles than anything else.

I entered college right around that time. I know multiple families who lost their home from it. My parents nearly did. My Grandparents attempt to downsize was delayed by almost five years of sitting with their house on the market and they ended up having to absolutely slash the sales price to sell their home.

I know people who lost their jobs as primary breadwinner in their household and never were able to get back into the workforce in any significant capacity until just before the pandemic.

I know many people who graduated college 2008-2012, had wonderful credentials/resumes, who weren't able to find stable employment or a starter "career" job until 2017 or later.

Hell, the 2008 crash was the big tipping point for the public idea that if you worked hard and did good in school, you could just expect things to work out well for your employment.

There's all sorts of shit you could use to pick apart these folks, blame what occurred on choices they made, and you wouldn't be entirely off base for some of them. However, that doesnct change that despite your personal circles, it had a significant impact.

We're going anecdote v anecdote here. Your insistance of a lack of effect on people crumbles the moment anyone comes in and says they know people who were.