United States

Occupy Wall Street, withdrawal from Iraq, and slow economic recovery

As these events unfolded in the autumn of 2011, another populist movement, this time on the left of the political spectrum, gained steam. Inspired by the mass protests of the Arab Spring and the demonstrations that had occurred in Spain and Greece in response to government austerity measures, a disparate group of protesters calling themselves Occupy Wall Street took up residence in a park near New York City’s financial district to call attention to a list of what they saw as injustices. Among the protesters’ concerns were that the wealthy were not paying what the protesters considered a fair share of income taxes, that more efforts needed to be directed at reducing unemployment, and that major corporations—particularly banks and other financial institutions—needed to be held more accountable for risky practices. The protesters identified themselves as “the 99 percent,” the have-nots who would no longer put up with the corruption and greed that they perceived among “the 1 percent,” the wealthiest Americans. In the succeeding weeks the movement spread to other cities across the country.

Occupy Wall StreetDemonstrators swarming Zuccotti Park in New York City's financial district, October 10, 2011, as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests.Andrew Burton/AP

As winter approached, the last U.S. troops left Baghdad in December, bringing to a close the Iraq War.

Soldiers saluting during the ceremony to mark the end of the U.S. military presence in Iraq, Baghdad, December 15, 2011.Shannon Stapleton—Reuters/Landov

Spring 2012 found the American economic recovery continuing to progress slowly. Many corporations were solidly in the black again, and many of the banks and financial institutions that had been rocked by the collapse of the housing market and by recession had returned to solvency, a number of them having paid back the rescue loans provided by the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. Wages, however, remained largely stagnant, and the housing market, while showing some signs of recovery, was still tottering, with foreclosures widespread and in some places seemingly ubiquitous. Unemployment, which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, had reached 10 percent in October 2009, fell significantly but still remained high at 8.2 percent in May 2012. Nevertheless, the U.S. economy was on more solid footing than Europe’s, which continued to suffer from the euro-zone debt crisis.