Today, the Census Bureau announced that one in seven Americans lived in poverty last year. Reporting income and poverty statistics for 2009, the Bureau said median income did not change substantially, remaining around $49,800. But the poverty rate climbed to 14.3 from 13.2 percent. That means that during 2009, More…
Back in the 1990s, companies like eTrade and the big banks democratized stock investing: Anyone, anywhere could purchase an index fund for a long-term investment or try to make a buck day trading. Stocks became sexy, and young individuals flooded into the market. Now, young people with cash in More…
In writing a short piece for the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I ended up learning a bit about the market for recreational vehicles — campers, mobile homes, trailers, etc. And I ended up hearing about one of the very unintended consequences of Hurricane Katrina: The government kind of screwed More…
A recently released convict describes how the foreclosure crisis changed the economy in prison:
[B]lack market prices were suddenly going through the roof. The price of a deck of smokes tripled. There was an actual economic reason about this.
This morning, the Department of Labor announced that initial weekly jobless claims dropped from last week’s seven-month peak, which was revised upward from 500,000 to 504,000. But this week’s claims remain high at 473,000, with the four-week moving average, smoothing out one-week blips, at 486,750. Claims need to fall More…
In the first week of July, Andie Davis’ husband, who worked in manufacturing, lost his job, as hundreds of thousands of Michiganders have since the onset of the recession. Soon after, he started collecting unemployment insurance benefits that might last the family of four as long as 99 weeks. Davis More…
Does a recessionary economy mean that workers must necessarily accept lower wages? Last week, The Wall Street Journal got a lot of attention for an article reporting that many businesses are reporting having trouble hiring — despite the fact that five workers are competing for every job opening:
Kindergarteners need to bring their own janitorial supplies:
Today, RealtyTrac announced that lenders repossessed 93,000 homes in July — 9 percent more than in June, and up 6 percent since 2009. Again, California had the most filings, and Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate, for the 43rd straight month.
This morning, the Department of Labor said that initial jobless claims edged up last week, from 460,000 to 479,000. Economists expected the number of claims to decrease. The weekly figure is the highest since April.
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