American Dreams shift in weak economy
Jan. 26, 2012
People said they still believe in the American Dream, equating it with economic success. But their expectations of what they can achieve for themselves and their children has changed during the last few years.
As elder care grows, so do labor battles
Jan. 23, 2012
Elder care and home health care are rare bright spots in the American economy, adding jobs at a steady clip. But as the workforce grows, so, too, do fights on unionization, wages and benefits.
Now & then: Is the Great Recession so different from the Great Depression?
Dec. 24, 2011
Some call this moment the Great Recession. As the hardship has lingered, others have begun calling it the Little Depression. But equating the hard times of the 1930s with the hard times of today is mostly overblown rhetoric. Or is it?
As Apple grew, American workers left behind
Nov. 16, 2011
Apple moved its production offshore in less than a generation and changing the career path of many of its workers. One of its workers describes a current and future life of temporary jobs that will keep him on the move, with retirement not in sight.
New data show fewer children, more seniors in poverty
Nov. 7, 2011
New data from the Census Bureau paints a fresh and complex picture of poverty in America. With tax credits and food stamps factored in, the number of children in poverty falls. When you include medical costs, the number of seniors in poverty skyrockets. Kat Aaron looks at how the supplemental poverty measure will change the poverty debate.
Poverty numbers get an update
Nov. 3, 2011
American poverty rates are based on calculations created in the 1960s by a statistician named Mollie Orshansky. Now, decades later, the figures are getting an overhaul. Will the new numbers shine a brighter light on the poor?
Promise of green jobs falls short for many
Oct. 26, 2011
Training for green industries doesn't necessarily result in job offers, particularly for those hoping to break into entry-level positions such as wind techs, despite the administration's push.
Occupy updates: Minneapolis, St. Louis and New Haven
Oct. 21, 2011
Occupy Wall Street protests, begun last month in Manhattan, have now spread to over 100 cities across the country. Here's some very local coverage from Minnesota, Connecticut and Missouri, thanks to our hyperlocal partners.
Occupy movement drives stakes on K Street
Oct. 20, 2011
The Occupy movement has built a national base powerful enough to alter discussions about the American economy. Protesters now face police crackdowns, questions about demands and a quickly approaching winter. But despite the pressures of politics and weather, occupiers are standing their ground.
American Steal: How U.S. steelworkers lost to China
Oct. 15, 2011
The reconstruction of the San Francisco Bay Bridge is well timed to create much-needed jobs. And it has. Only the jobs are in China. Will the outsourcing of this $12 billion project deliver a death blow to the American steel industry?
Job training programs open the door. Budget cuts may close it.
Oct. 13, 2011
Job-training programs can provide an avenue to the American Dream for those who have fallen through the cracks. But budget fights may cut off a critical flow of funds, putting years of success at risk.
Young people struggling to find work
Oct. 10, 2011
Turns out it's not older workers struggling the most in the post-recession period. It's young workers, and the consequences of their shaky entry to the job market will ripple for decades.
Women left behind in recovery
Oct. 10, 2011
For teen girls of color, the recovery has "been an absolute disaster." New numbers from Gallup show young African-American women are facing an uphill road to employment.
Mood of the country: 'anxiety-ridden'
Oct. 10, 2011
The head of Gallup, which polls Americans regularly, says the nation's mood is bleak. But Americans' lack of confidence in the federal government concerns him more.
Can Oakland continue to blossom despite serious financial woes?
Sept. 22, 2011
If Oakland doesn’t find a way to rein in its fiscal woes and create more sustainable jobs for its residents, it could see a steep crash, with a long road ahead to recovery. As it stands now, the West Coast city is already headed for painful fiscal times.
California: 2 million kids in poverty
Sept. 16, 2011
The Hernandez family in East Palo Alto, Calif., is among the growing number of Californians in poverty more than 2 million of them children.
'The worst time of my life': The job hunt remains a struggle
Sept. 16, 2011
Finding work is still a serious challenge for residents of the nation's capital. The Investigative Reporting Workshop interviewed dozens of people looking for work in the District of Columbia as well as those who counsel and serve them. Facing the worst economic outlook in decades, job seekers are struggling and frustrated, but trying to stay optimistic.
Full Story | Videos | Interviews
Working, but still poor
Sept. 13, 2011
From the president to Congress to nearly every neighborhood in America, the focus today is on job creation. But for millions of Americans, just having a job doesn’t mean prosperity or anything like it. We report on the rise of the working poor.
'Grim' new poverty numbers
Sept. 13, 2011
More Americans than ever before — 4.62 million — were living in poverty in 2010, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. And 6.7 percent of Americans live in deep poverty, below 50 percent of the poverty line, the highest rate ever recorded. Read on.
Market for old debt fuels payday for rich
Sept. 8, 2011
Many people think old debt is forgotten debt. But hundreds of thousands of debtors nationwide have been hit by a new breed of collection agency: debt buyers, attracted by the potential for huge profits. And private equity firms are getting in on the action. Bryant Switzky reports.
Housing counselors under siege
Aug. 5, 2011
Housing counselors are getting hammered by federal budget cuts that take effect this fall, and any new money for 2012 is likely to require a fight — all in a period when foreclosure actions are expected to rise.
Full Story | Documents | Videos
California reeling from the foreclosure crisis
July 25, 2011
California’s foreclosure crisis has decimated urban centers and swaths of the Central Valley. One in 51 housing units received a foreclosure filing during the first six months of 2011, according to RealtyTrac. Minorities in the state are being hit the hardest. New America Media's Ngoc Nguyen explores the reach of the state's mortgage meltdown and legislative efforts to solve California's deep housing problems.
Full Story | Slideshow | Sidebar | Profiles
Vets hit hard by foreclosure in Florida
July 23, 2011
The Fort Myers-Cape Coral region, home to about 60,000 veterans, is a microcosm of what is happening all over America to veterans facing tough times.
Putting a human face on the financial crisis
July 21, 2011
The Investigative Reporting Workshop and New America Media have teamed up to portray the human face of the crisis a year after the passage of landmark financial reform legislation.In California, we profile homeowners who have been devastated by the loss of their homes and have had to start over. In Maryland, we examine the nation’s wealthiest majority-black county, where the consequences of lost homes will ripple for generations.
A history of foreclosure prevention: lots of programs, little success
July 21, 2011
Since the foreclosure crisis hit, the federal government has launched program after program to help homeowners. But the number of foreclosures, delinquencies, vacancies and lives destroyed continues to mount.
Promoting home ownership through the years
July 21, 2011
Since 1995, the federal government has spent nearly $40 billion and provided trillions of dollars worth of insurance guarantees to lenders to promote homeownership, with many initiatives focused specifically on communities of color. But despite more than 15 years of commitments to the American dream, almost all the gains in home ownership made since the early 1990s have been erased.
Foreclosures mount, mediation efforts fail
July 21, 2011
Prince George's County, Md., is the wealthiest majority-black county in the country. Here, as in many communities of color, residents have been devastated by the foreclosure crisis. Mediation was touted as a way to stop the bleeding. But a year after the state passed a mediation law, just 56 homeowners have gotten a modification of their loan.
Full Story | Documents | Video | Explainer | Map | Profiles
Legal aid reeling from proposed budget cuts
July 12, 2011
Funding for legal aid would drop back to 1999 levels, under a proposal released last week by the House Appropriations Committee. Legal services groups say they're already stretched too thin, and further cuts will mean even more poor people have to face the courts alone.
'Dropping out' of the middle class
June 21, 2011
Thousands gathered on the National Mall last October to rally for the creation of more jobs. But teachers, caregivers and health-care professionals say they are still discouraged months later about the pace of the economic recovery. Here they talk about what they are facing on the home front.
Full Story | Interviews | Videos
Lost Jobs: Why fixing the trade deficit matters most
June 18, 2011
The trade deficit has decimated the American workforce, blocked the creation of millions of jobs, created millions more jobs for people in other countries, triggered pay cuts for millions of workers who still have jobs in the United States, and generally lowered the standard of living for many at the bottom and in the middle of the economic pile.
Budget cuts leave workers in the lurch
June 8, 2011
States are cutting unemployment benefits, cash assistance, child care and job training, writes the Workshop's Kat Aaron at the American Prospect. Without these supports, American workers may be unprepared for the future — if they make it through the present
Full Story | Data | Map
Skills and jobs don't line up
May 12, 2011
The skills and education of America's workforce don't line up with the jobs on offer. By 2018, 72 percent of all jobs will require a college degree, but just 40 percent of Americans now have an associates degree. The solution involves massive changes to the way America thinks about education, workforce development and economic policy.
Tax time: Are corporations paying their share?
April 16, 2011
One of the more egregious falsehoods being peddled by the corporate tax cutters is that companies doing business in the United States are taxed at an exorbitant rate. Not so. While the United States has one of the highest statutory rates on the books at 35 percent, the only fair way to measure what companies actually pay is their effective rate after deductions, credits and assorted writeoffs.
If government foreclosure prevention isn't working, what is?
April 15, 2011
The Obama Administration’s foreclosure prevention program was projected to help 3 million to 4 million homeowners. Now, the program is expected to help less than half that. So if the program isn’t saving homes, what is?
Charts help: Economic data by the numbers
April 15, 2011
Since the rise of interactive data visualizations, the dismal science has become decidedly less dismal. Economists are still painting a pretty grim picture of the American economy, but at least the statistics are easy to understand and interpret, thanks to a few stellar new websites.
Retraining program helps, but new jobs fall short
March 22, 2011
The Trade Adjustment Act provides expanded benefits to workers who lose their jobs because of imports or offshoring — jobs lost because a company moves its factory overseas or starts importing a product that used to be made in America. Workers can get retrained through the program. But for what?
Full Story | Documents | Explainer
Graphic: U.S. offshoring trends since 1975
March 22, 2011
Offshoring moves in waves, with spikes and troughs in particular industries. These charts track the number of Trade Adjustment petitions approved. Each petition represents work moved overseas or lost to trade. It does not show the number of workers who lost jobs.
Full Story | Documents | Explainer
Philadelphia health care workers fight for a contract
March 17, 2011
Workers at a nursing home near Philadelphia unionized last year, seeking better wages and less expensive health care. Still without a contract, they picketed, a scene likely to be repeated around the country in the coming months and years.
Profile: Alan Gunderson, computer programmer
March 10, 2011
Alan Gunderson, 52, worked as a systems analyst and computer programmer in Tulsa, Okla. When he quit his job in July 2008, he had never been out of a job longer than a month. After two years out of work he landed a new job nine months ago, earning $15,000 less with no guaranteed benefits.
Profile: Wayne Drescher, automotive IT worker
March 10, 2011
Wayne Drescher worked in automotive IT in Indiana. He was with his company for 23 years before being laid off from his position more than two years ago. Here is an edited excerpt of their conversation.
Profile: JD Galvin, IT worker
March 10, 2011
JD Galvin studied substance abuse counseling in college, and started his career in human services. He switched to IT in 2000 and was laid off two years ago.
He has yet to find a new job. He's now active in the 99ers movement, an effort to organize people who have exhausted all available unemployment benefits.
Programming jobs fall, despite Labor Department's outlook
March 10, 2011
In 1990, the U.S. Department of Labor predicted there would be more well-paid jobs for programmers with four years of college. They were wrong. Employment fluctuated in the years following the report, then settled into a slow downward pattern after 2000.
Documenting a national feeling
Feb. 7, 2011
Eileen Breen was one of hundreds who wrote to Barlett and Steele twenty years ago, hoping that things would get better for her and her family. Now 53, things haven't panned out the way she hoped.
How the series unfolded
Feb. 7, 2011
In 1991, Barlett and Steele traveled the country talking to people about their work and lives. As the reporters gathered similar and compelling stories of job losses and factory closings from California to New York, they came to the realization that what they had was more than a traditional newspaper story.
Experimenting with economic storytelling
Feb. 7, 2011
Here at the website, we're launching into a year of experimentation. We'll be doing deep-dig reporting, from Barlett and Steele and the IRW team. We'll also be comparing policy proposals, creating glossaries and sharing data sets. And we want to hear your stories — first, on offshoring and outsourcing.
How banks, government fail Americans: Investigating what went wrong
Feb. 7, 2011
Donald Barlett and James Steele are revisiting America: What Went Wrong, their landmark 1991 newspaper series, in a new project with the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Over the next year, the project team will examine how four decades of public policy has shaped America's ongoing economic crisis.
