Rhode Island's Little Economy In Giant Fix

'Boomerang kids' have trouble finding well-paying work

(NEWSER) - As many as three out of 10 young adults are moving back in with their parents—resulting in the highest share of 18- to 34-year-olds living with multiple generations since the 1950s—after finding themselves unable to find lucrative employment in this dismal economy. They're dubbed "boomerang kids" because they depart for school or work only to return to the nest, but surprisingly, reports the Christian Science Monitor , 78% say they're happy living at home and 24% say it's positive for their relationship with their parents. More»

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.

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»

At least new industries arose in the 1930s: Leonhardt

(NEWSER) - There's never a Great Depression around when you need one, apparently. Despite its misery, "the United States economy was quietly making enormous strides during the 1930s," argues David Leonhardt in the New York Times . Americans were getting a better education—high school, back then—while industrious entrepreneurs were inventing television, mass marketing refrigerators, and improving railroads. "It would clearly be nice if we could take some comfort from this bit of history," writes Leonhardt. "If anything, though, the lesson of the 1930s may be the opposite one." More»

This kind of stalled job growth often leads to recession: David Leonhardt

(NEWSER) - Bleak reading for the White House ahead of the president's jobs speech : David Leonhardt of the New York Times thinks the odds of a double-dip recession have spiked of late and might be around 50-50 now. The US had been putt-putting along in what looked to be a modest recovery for about a year until this spring, when job growth stalled. Since then, we're averaging about 40,000 new jobs a month, he notes, and "the last time such a meager increase did not coincide with a recession came in the 1950s." More»