Recession Squeezes 'Grandfamilies'

The recession is putting a serious strain on the safety net millions of American grandparents provide for their grandkids, the Wall Street Journal reports. The number of children who live in a household headed by a grandparent has been rising for decades, but older workers are finding it tough to get interviews, let alone new jobs, and many worry their grandchildren may be taken into foster care.

"This is the worst we've ever seen," said an official in Washington state. "We're hearing of cases where grandfathers who are the families' breadwinner are losing their jobs, of grandmothers who are raising multiple grandchildren and are close to losing their homes to foreclosures." Nationwide, the unemployment rate for workers 55 and older is 6.2%, the highest since 1949. (More grandparents stories.)