Economic Impact of Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey

Abstract
In 2012 Hurricane Sandy came and made a horrendous imprint on the Northeast United States. Sandy was a category 3 storm that ravaged people, towns, and businesses up and down the Atlantic coast flooding streets & tunnels, subway lines, and cut power in and around the city. Here we will see what the economic impacts were to New Jersey because of the storm. We will also look at the recovery and how that affected the economy for that state as of today, and projections for the future. Key words: Economy

Economic Damage to the State
There had been descending times in New Jersey, their GDP dropped from $482.1 billion in 2008 to $470.35 billion in 2009 during the Great Recession, and has rebounded slowly, climbing back to $480.4 billion in 2010 and hitting $486.99 billion in 2011. In both years, New Jersey ranked 47th nationally in economic growth (Magyar, 2013). Then a major disaster in Hurricane Sandy happened, and packed a bigger economic punch than most people had thought. In its sweep through the Northeast, the storm halted sales at major retailers at the start of the crucial holiday shopping season, closed factories and slowed home sales in one of the most densely populated areas of the country. Target and Macy's blamed the storm for weak sales in November. Macy's and Nordstrom Inc. reported their first monthly sales drop since late 2009, when the U.S. economy was just emerging from the Great Recession. The government said that new-home sales plunged 32 percent in the Northeast last month and nearly 12 percent in the South. By contrast, sales surged nearly 63 percent in the Midwest and nearly 9 percent in the West. Sandy is being blamed for about $62 billion in damage and other losses in the U.S., most of it in New York and New Jersey (Matthews, 2012). It's the second-costliest storm in U.S.