Recession Will End This Year

Columbus, Indiana, and Casper, Wyoming top employment list

(NEWSER) - Recession—that's a big-city thing, right? Several mid-size cities around the US are making an argument for their economic superiority, boasting job growth higher than the 1.5% national average in 2011. You may not know these cities well, but the Christian Science Monitor recommends them:

1. Columbus, Indiana: No, not Ohio's Columbus: Indiana's version had 10% growth from 2009 to 2010, making it the best economic rebounder during the Great Recession. Jobs are up 6.4%.

But most remain upbeat about their future: Pew survey

(NEWSER) - The economy is doing a number on those aged 18 to 34, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center :

• Half say they have taken a job they didn't want.
• More than a third have gone back to school because of the job market.
• Nearly a quarter have taken unpaid work to gain experience.
• About a quarter have moved back in with the folks.
• More than 1 in 5 have postponed having a baby, and about the same number have put off getting married.

Thanks to improving housing market, private debt: Paul Krugman

(NEWSER) - The economy has had its share of false starts over the past few years, but this time things could really be improving, opines Paul Krugman. "There’s evidence that the two great problems at the root of our slump—the housing bust and excessive private debt—are finally easing," he notes in the New York Times . House prices have returned to where they were in 2003, in the middle of the bubble. And right now, the country is looking "seriously underprovided" on the housing front. More»

Housing prices are the real culprit

(NEWSER) - The recession is hurting most of us, but Gen X has taken the brunt of it—thanks to housing prices that fell off a cliff 5 years ago and are still tumbling. Consider the 30-year-old Gen-Xer who bought a house in 2006 for $250,000. That value has now dropped by a third, hurting any chance of a comfortable retirement. Compare that to a Baby Boomer of the same age who bought a house in 1991 for $100,000: Sure, it's lost value in the downturn, but its median selling price is still $170,000. More»

Forecast sees it at 8.6% at end of 2012

(NEWSER) - If President Obama were hoping for a quick election-year turnaround in the jobless rate, the Federal Reserve burst his bubble today. The Fed projected unemployment will be at 8.6% at the end of 2012, not much better than the 9.1% registered in September of this year, reports the Wall Street Journal . The projections don't get remarkably better after that: The Fed sees the rate at 8% by the end of 2013 and 7.7% the following year. More»