Those in the lower-income groups are in a much, much deeper hole than the general commentary on the recession would lead people to believe.
Recession
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NYT: Recession News
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The Worst of the Pain
8 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm -
Is Greece’s Debt Trashing the Euro?
6 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pmGreece’s problems, and those looming over its neighbors, have laid bare the dangers of divergent fiscal and political policies in the euro zone. -
This Crisis Won’t Stop Moving
6 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pmInvestors should prepare for more market gyrations as painful deleveraging continues around the globe. -
The Truth About the Deficit
6 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pmThough the government will soon need to address the deficit, the last thing it should do is slash spending at a time of high unemployment and fragile growth. -
Women Now a Majority in American Workplaces
5 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pmAs in previous recessions, male workers have borne the brunt of the job losses in the last two years.
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WSJ.com: Laid Off And Looking
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Giving Up on the Conventional Resume
9 Feb 2010 | 10:26 amBrent Humphries was a technical project manager at the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care. His position was eliminated in June 2009, after five years with the nonprofit. Previously, he worked as an IT contractor for various financial services companies. Mr. Humphries, 37, earned a part-time MBA from the University of Iowa in 2009. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa. I just finished the third interview in a week where the interviewer never even looked at my resume. In a world where companies streamline the screening process to the nth degree, personal networks trump everything else, and applicants are… -
Avoiding Mistakes While Job Hunting Online
8 Feb 2010 | 10:57 amJob searching online can make you susceptible to unexpected pitfalls. Some companies can see if you’re frequently re-submitting your resume, and others can track your cover letters for every position to instantly pick out any discrepancies — especially if you refer to each position as your “dream job,” writes WSJ’s Sarah E. Needleman. Applying for every posting despite your qualifications is another common problem. Filling out an online application online may only take a few minutes, but the practice can annoy company recruiters. Here, Ms. Needleman shares more… -
During the Search, Looking at More Than Salary
5 Feb 2010 | 9:00 amAngela Dorsey was a panel operations manager for comScore, Inc., a marketing research company, until her job was eliminated in October 2009 after more than a year with the company. Previously, Ms. Dorsey, 38, was a senior program manager for Blackboard, Inc., an e-learning technology software provider. She earned an M.B.A. and M.S. in e-Commerce from the University of Maryland, University College in August 2005 and December 2007, respectively. She lives with her husband in Alexandria, Virginia. When the chief executive of my former company emailed an announcement to the entire staff a day… -
As a Temp Job Ends, Searching for a Full-Time Role
4 Feb 2010 | 9:35 amF. Ellen Whaley spent over 11 years at Aetna Inc., most recently as an operations CFO. Her position was eliminated in 2001. Previously, Ms. Whaley, 54, was a management consultant. She’s now looking to re-enter the job market after an eight-year hiatus. She lives with her husband in Essex, Conn. I am about a third of the way through my commitment to my temporary assignment and have been so caught up in the assignment that I have not been able to maintain the contacts I worked so hard to re-establish last fall. I must now move into active, disciplined networking. I need to let my former… -
Pursuing a Variety of Leads During a Long Transition
3 Feb 2010 | 10:19 amSteve McConaughey was the director of marketing for the service division of Siemens Healthcare, until his position was eliminated in November 2008 after five years with the company. Previously, Mr. McConaughey, 50, worked for three software and networking startup companies in Silicon Valley and North Carolina. He earned an M.B.A. from University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business in 1990. He lives with his wife and son in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. One of the most maddening yet exhilarating aspects of job hunting is not knowing where the paths I follow will lead. The maddening…
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Recession on The Huffington Post
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Small Business Owners Still 'Depressed,' 2010 Outlook Still Grim: Survey
9 Feb 2010 | 2:44 amWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The outlook of small business owners remained bleak at the start of the new year, according to a survey released on Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business. Read more: Small Business Owners, Small Business, Unemployment, Jobs Growth, Economy, Jobs, Economic Recovery, Recession, American Small Business, Business News -
Greg Evans: Undercover B.S.
8 Feb 2010 | 1:55 pmI watched CBS's new Undercover Boss, and I have a question. What time is the revolution? Unveiling the series in the post-Super Bowl slot, CBS clearly has high hopes for UnBoss, a reality show for the New Depression. Rich man helps poor man. Beneath every Donald Trump there's a George Clooney struggling to breathe free. Not since Welcome to the Neighborhood -- ABC's bright idea in 2005 to build a feel-good program around residential redlining -- has a reality show struck me as so clueless, zeitgeistwise. Take away the faux socially responsible trappings and UnBoss is an odious exercise in… -
Mortgage Bankers Association Sells Its Headquarters Short, Loses MILLIONS
8 Feb 2010 | 6:08 amCall it real estate irony. The Washington Post reports that the Mortgage Bankers Association, the trade group that represents about 2,400 real estate finance companies, has sold its Washington, D.C. headquarters for $41 million -- just over half what it paid for the building three years ago. When the MBA purchased the new ten-story building in 2007 for $79 million, the organization said it would finance the property in part by leasing the space it didn't use to other companies. "We have come to the inescapable conclusion that owning our own building [is] the smartest long-term investment for… -
Small Businesses Still NOT Hiring -- And Recovery Is Stalled As A Result
8 Feb 2010 | 3:32 amCompanies with fewer than 500 employees, such as Phoenix Technologies Ltd. and Sonic Corp., helped lead the economy out of the four recessions since 1980. This time, they continue to cut capital spending and dismiss workers, eliminating 3,000 jobs in January, according to Roseland, New Jersey-based Automatic Data Processing Inc., the world's largest payroll processor. Read more: Small Business Owners, Small Business, Unemployment, Jobs Growth, Jobs, Economic Recovery, Recession, Business News -
Todd Hartley: In Aspen, It Would Be $3,500 a Month
5 Feb 2010 | 8:24 amSo you think you've been hit hard by the global recession, eh? Two years ago you lived in a 20,000-square-foot mansion, but the bank foreclosed on you, and now you're sharing a trailer with a family of toothless rednecks? Well, boo-friggin'-hoo. Cry me a river, Alice. You have no idea how good you've got it. Still, I can't help but feel a little sorry for you, so, in an effort to cheer you up about the fact that your living situation has gone down the toilet, I'm going to point out to you how much worse things could be. It'll be a little like one of my favorite childhood books: Dr. Seuss's…
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Recessionwire
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Recessionwire Turns One Year Old
9 Feb 2010 | 9:45 amWhat a year it has been. We have seen the he-men fall; retailers give us better discounts; the ups and downs of economic forecasts; and changes in gender balance on the home front. The world certainly feels different from a year ago, when “recession” was still cocktail-party chatter, not a serious matter of devastating losses of jobs, homes and savings. Back then, it seemed it would be a brief period of hunkering down; now, we know better. But we see the positive, too: We’ve seen families get closer, our national savings rate improve, businesses get smarter, values… -
Have the Cheapest and Awesomest V-Day Ever
9 Feb 2010 | 8:18 amSay what you will about commercialism and Valentine’s Day—it’s hard to reject a day that celebrates love in all its squishy glory. Stop using money as an excuse to check out–who says you have to buy roses at inflated prices, or shell out for an overcrowded restaurant? In fact, sharing V-Day in a way that involves less spending (much, much less…) can be even more special. Start with our nine tips for gifts, meals and activities that will make your Feb. 14 about connection, consideration and romance, not cash and cliches. Say it with pictures Or as PhotoJoJo puts it:… -
Recession Briefing: Crazy for Coupons
9 Feb 2010 | 6:50 amWhat you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession. Coupon use has risen every quarter since the end of 2008, making 2009 the first year of rising coupon use since 1992. Last year, 3.5 billion coupons were redeemed, according to Inmar, a coupon processor that handles about half of the market and publishes figures extrapolated from its own volume. (New York Times) When you’ve flooded the economy with trillions of dollars, mopping up is no easy task. That’s the reality the Federal Reserve is confronting as it starts to explain how it will undo the aggressive… -
Screwed: 300 at UPS
9 Feb 2010 | 6:27 amA daily review of the employment fallout around the country and the world. Today’s Total: 701 After announcing a layoff of 1,800 administrative positions, UPS may furlough as many as 300 pilots starting in May…in St. Louis, Trans States Airlines will lay off 150 service representatives and baggage handlers by April…In Tennessee, Mapa Spontex plans to eliminate 132 jobs from March 19 until sometime in June…Non-profit Adelphoi Village is closing a facility in Pennsylvania and laying off 70 workers by April…In New York, the Katonah-Lewisboro School District may lay… -
How to Get to Brand You
8 Feb 2010 | 10:56 amYou know the score. It’s all about personal branding these days. You know what to do: the blog, the Twitter account, the Facebook page, the … you know, the branding stuff. You need a job, and to get it, or that fat yet elusive raise and promotion, you have to distinguish yourself. With branding. Hold the phone, there, sweet pea. Before you go all Seth Godin on us, take a moment’s pause. Just a moment – well, OK, I lied, more like several moments. And get clear on just what kind of brand you’re communicating to those prospective and current Powers That Be. What the Heck Is a Personal…
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Megan McArdle
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Shoe, Meet the Other Foot
8 Feb 2010 | 3:09 pmWhen a reader offered up this New York Times editorial, I confess I suspected he might have written it himself--it was so pitch perfectly hilarious. But no, it's real:June 23, 2005 Social Security Follies Congressional Republicans have begun talking with top White House aides about an exit strategy -- not from Iraq, but from the winless quagmire of President Bush's campaign to privatize Social Security. Mr. Bush has responded to this new political reality by, first, insisting that the American people do not yet understand the virtues of privatization, and second, blaming the failure of… -
Is Apple Paving the Way for Oligopoly?
8 Feb 2010 | 2:48 pmCommenter Bosco Higgins offers an astute possibility as to why Apple might be signalling that they're willing to cut prices, even though this will just encourage consumers to wait:If I had to guess I would say it is a pricing signal to its competitors (Kindle, Nook, Sony) saying that if they try to compete on price, Apple is prepared to willing to drop iPad prices. It is the old prisoner's delimma on pricing - Apple is trying to establish a cartel price and scare the other participants from defecting.It's not a bad guess. Oligopolies can be maintained for quite some time with the right… -
Apple Says it Will Lower Prices if iPad Doesn't Sell
8 Feb 2010 | 12:20 pmRemember the kerfuffle over the original iPhone? Apple charged luxe prices for the first few months, and then after it had wrung every possible dollar out of the early adopters, dropped the cost to capture more price-sensitive users. Many of those who had bought early reacted with the righteous fury of a wronged spouse.This time around, they can't say they weren't warned: Apple has apparently already said that if sales of the iPad aren't brisk enough, it will drop the price. I expect it will have to, if the company is to have any hope of hitting the 1-5 million sales… -
Obama's Hail Mary on Health Care
8 Feb 2010 | 11:01 amAsking Republicans to be part of a televised forum on health care reform is a clever move: put up or shut up. Nonetheless, I'd guess it probably fails. Republicans are saying what you'd expect them to: we won't engage in sham negotiations. If you want us to come to the table, shelve this monstrous and unpopular plan and let's start over.Democrats should recognize the tactic: they invented it. And used it successfully against Social Security reform in 2005. Sure, they wanted to do Social Security reform, they said. All Republicans had to do… -
Quote of the Day
8 Feb 2010 | 10:57 amKenneth Anderson:And finally Joshua Kurlantzick, in the Boston Globe, "Dazzled by Asia," arguing that if you're assuming an emerging Chinese hegemony, you might be disappointed. (To which I'd my own oft-repeated observation that if the corollary is longing for American decline and the rise of a new, post-American-hegemony, world of cooperative great powers in peace and harmony, think again -- the human right universalism of the last fifteen years has been an epiphenomenon of American hegemony, and if it fades, the human rights universalists fade with it. A multipolar…
