Foreclosure Nation

It cost $25,299 to raise a child from birth to age 18 in 1960. The amount rose to $226,920 last year. This may be one of the many reasons Americans are having fewer children these days. Adjusted for inflation, the 1960 sum equals about $192,497 compared to $235,996 in 2010, about a 22% increase. ...

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Retailers and financial institutions, take note: Tomorrow’s customers are wary of you. A new poll finds that more than 7 in 10 teens believe businesses try to trick them into spending more than they should. In addition, 6 in 10 think credit card companies entice people into taking on more debt than...

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May's drop in new home sales is just the latest sign that the housing market continues to be bleak, as it has every right to be with a "shadow inventory" of 1.7 million impending foreclosures hanging over it. But there is some good news: Discussion of the need for more aggressive foreclosure relief,...

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These days, it seems that many people need some tough love when it comes to their financial health. Every day, I meet people who have become unemployed, have taken a pay cut, or are experiencing a slow period in their business. On top of that, they have credit card and student loan debt, and their ...

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Here's a friendly reminder to everyone who has summer vacation plans: Before your departure date, it's a good idea to solicit the help of a trusted friend or neighbor to look after your domicile while you are away on holiday. It's a good way to ensure that pets get fed, plants get watered and mail d...

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Prospective homebuyers cite worries about future unemployment, concerns about property affordability, and the local economic outlook as issues that hold them back from jumping into the market, according to an industry survey commissioned by Genworth. But the Virginia-based mortgage insurer says th...

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45 Percent of U.S. Adults Say Government Not Doing Enough to Prevent Foreclosures Trulia and RealtyTrac on May 18 released the latest results of an ongoing survey that has tracked American attitudes toward foreclosed homes since 2008. Harris Interactive® conducted this online survey on their behalf...

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I just finished reading about the Nyergers. That’s the retired cop and his wife who moved to Florida, bought their dream home for cash and then – thanks to a paperwork error – found out the bank was foreclosing on them. My guess is this happened because someone forgot to tell the bank’s lawyer t...

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With the housing crisis still taking its toll, the nation’s homeownership rate slipped further during the first three months of this year. The U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday that the homeownership rate dropped to 66.4 percent at the end of the first quarter. It’s fallen back to a level not ...

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The past 70 years have seen three massive, value-destroying market crashes. After each, regulators have attempted to punish wrongdoers and implement fixes to prevent future meltdowns. It hasn't helped, because regulators have focused on symptoms instead of root causes. The only way we can avoid incr...

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Judges have signed off on more than 5,000 warrants allowing borrowers who don't pay to be jailed since the start of 2010. Portfolio Recovery Associates, a debt buyer, made $44 million last year on $281 million in revenue, a 16% net margin. You wouldn't be crazy to think that debtor's prisons are a ...

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A few weeks ago, when the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide, I wrote a column lamenting the fact that none of the big fish were likely to go to prison for their roles in the financial crisis. Soon after that column ran, I received ...

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Yes, it’s a roof, and yes, it’s an investment. But it’s far more than that. I wanted to live on our block from the first moment I saw it. I wish I could tell you that some quirky, perfect detail captured my heart, but there was no such “movie moment.” Somehow, the genteel dilapidation of its creaky...

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Without a flood of food stamps and tax benefits for low-income families, about 250,000 more New Yorkers would have slipped into poverty at the height of the recession, according to calculations to be released Monday by city officials. As it was, while the federal poverty rate for the city remained...

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When we think about poverty, we usually think in terms of income. That's how the federal government defines poverty: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for example, defines poverty this year as an income of $22,350 or less for a family of four. But income isn't the whole story. And t...

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What would you do if you had thirty days to find an extra $2,000? That's the question posed by the Brookings Institute in a recent paper, "Financially Fragile Households: Evidence and Implications." Their findings, Brookings says, indicate an alarming inability among U.S. families to deal with ord...

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Research released this week by the senior research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland reveals homeownership is more sustainable for people who come to the table with down payments. The study examines the types of homeowner assistance that the government uses to promote homeownership...

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Bryan Esenberg's job is to tend the graveyard of Chicago's housing boom. Esenberg works for a local nonprofit that steps in to prevent abandoned buildings mired in the foreclosure process from falling apart while mortgage companies, lenders, owners and investors grapple over who is responsible. O...

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NEW YORK - A million dollars ain't what it used to be. More than four out of ten American millionaires say they do not feel rich. Indeed many would need to have at least $7.5 million in order to feel they were truly rich, according to a Fidelity Investments survey. Some 42 percent of the more th...

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Today, as HuffPost and AOL unite to launch the Huffington Post Media Group, we're celebrating by making a statement about the importance of giving back and helping others. Led by HuffPost Impact -- The Huffington Post's section devoted to service, causes, and volunteering -- every HuffPost section ...

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The Justice Department is investigating allegations that a mortgage subsidiary of Morgan Stanley foreclosed on almost two dozen military families from 2006 to 2008 in violation of a longstanding law aimed at preventing such action. A department spokeswoman confirmed on Friday that the Morgan Sta...

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This week I was the recipient of a Barn Raising, but instead of a barn it was my house and instead of a raising it was more of a razing and instead of building a place in which to put my cows, it was more along the lines of preparing the place to try and sell it to avoid The New F Word -- foreclos...

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Senators and banks across the country are joining forces in order to provide mortgage protection for members of the military. After reports that some members of the military and their families are struggling to remain in their homes, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and others including Se...

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Forget the standard advice that everyone should apply for financial aid. This year, forgoing aid applications may actually boost the chances of getting accepted. Thanks to the recent recession, more colleges are giving seats to wealthier students—especially international or wait-listed applicants—w...

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Forget the standard advice that everyone should apply for financial aid. This year, forgoing aid applications may actually boost the chances of getting accepted. Thanks to the recent recession, more colleges are giving seats to wealthier students—especially international or wait-listed applicants—w...

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Developers and builders expect baby boomers to re-emerge in the real estate market soon, but they say boomers likely will come with a simpler agenda when it comes to what they’re looking for in a home. "We have an opportunity to rethink a lot of the things we've done" in designing communities an...

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WHEN Zella Mae Green of Georgia filed for bankruptcy to save her home from foreclosure in 2004, she and her lawyer wanted to know two things: Did she actually owe any back payments on her mortgage? And, if so, to whom? It didn’t seem like a lot to ask. But until last week, those questions had been...

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About 2.5 million residents of New York State, trapped at the margins of the economy, lack the basic skills that come with a high school education. To help these people — and strengthen the economy — the state must work with the cities to expand access to the relatively inexpensive programs that pre...

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During the State of the Union address, I was lying on the living room floor listening to the president talk about the entrepreneurial spirit and the future of the United States of America. I got chills down my spine thinking about how important that statement is to our future. Our future is now. As...

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Three out of four home owners — or 78 percent — say their homes are the best investment they ever made, according to Trulia.com’s biannual American Dream survey, which has tracked attitudes toward home ownership since 2009. Despite foreclosures and underwater homes continuing to batter the real e...

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During the State of the Union address, I was lying on the living room floor listening to the president talk about the entrepreneurial spirit and the future of the United States of America. I got chills down my spine thinking about how important that statement is to our future. Our future is now. ...

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News media have been contemplating implications of the oldest Baby Boomers turning 65 this year. This is a symbolic passage but nevertheless thought worthy. Around 10,000 will reach the milestone daily for the next nineteen years. Never has the nation dealt with population aging of this magnitude. ...

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Budget proposal would cut billions from aid program. The White House is targeting the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget will cut several billion dollars from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people, officials briefed on the subject ...

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Despite signs of continued housing market distress, most homeowners and perspective buyers are optimistic about the housing market, according to a survey by real estate website Trulia. (Scroll down for a graphic.) In the biannual American Dream Survey, 78 percent of homeowners said their property w...

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While most of us would agree that, almost by definition, democracy as a form of government is very expensive over the long run, I think we are all shocked at how it has so rapidly become unaffordable in recent years. Our cherished system of a government for, by and of the people that has helped to c...

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Contrary to what most of you might guess, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity over the last few years is not Gen-Y young upstarts, but Baby Boomers in the 55-64 year age group. In fact, according to a study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, these Boomers are actually driving a new en...

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The real estate listing and search site Trulia.com released the results of its biannual American Dream survey this week. The survey has tracked American attitudes toward homeownership since 2009. Although foreclosures and underwater homes continue to plague today’s housing market, the survey found...

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WASHINGTON -- Nearly 1 in every 4 U.S. homeowners with mortgages owe more on their home than it's worth. Once a month, those 10.8 million are faced with a question that cuts to the core of the American Dream and offers a confusing collision between a deep-seated sense of personal obligation and a co...

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Step back from the ledge, America. Scotch the gloomy talk of a Japan-style Lost Decade in which we sink into decline and marinate morosely there for years. We're back, baby! So says a cheery depiction of these times from the wizards at Goldman Sachs (a firm that, come to think of it, played a starri...

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FORT PIERCE, Fla. — For the three generations of the Maggi family crowded into a recession-beaten three-bedroom ranch house here, the tension from living on top of one another for the last 10 months sometimes erupts at unexpected moments. A nudge from Kathy Maggi for her 26-year-old daughter, ...

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The country’s teenage birth rate hit an all-time low in 2009, a decline that experts say is partly because of the economy. The rate fell to 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19, according to a report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was a 6 percent de...

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As the House considers a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%, slash corporate taxes and potentially make the Estate Tax more generous to billionaires than ever before, it's instructive to put the move into a larger cultural/historical context. And thanks to newly released IRS documents, ...

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According to a study released by Fannie Mae, most Americans strongly desire to own homes and maintain homeownership, but a number of factors, including financial caution and shrinking households, continue to contribute to a willingness to rent. “Despite Americans’ strong desire to own their home...

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We can safely assume that everyone knows something about the trouble with real estate, housing and foreclosures today. In fact most folks who are not in default or foreclosure or underwater on their own homes personally know someone else who is. And yet, as I learned at a South Florida university pr...

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After you read this column, go to YouTube and search “Hans Rosling and 200 countries.” You’ll see a Swedish professor describe the growth of global wealth and well-being over the past 200 years. He presents an animated time-lapse chart. It starts in 1810, when the nations of the world were clum...

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There are at least ten states in which 6% or more of population experiences very low food security. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, “In households with very low food security, the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrup...

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America is a nation of optimists. Just two years after declaring this the worst financial crisis since the age of Busby Berkeley and speakeasies, it now appears that we are starting to ante up again by releasing our cash. Maybe spending is part of what makes us American--our founding fathers, who ...

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke believes the growing income gap is "creating two societies" in America. The central bank chief weighed in on income inequality during an interview Sunday with "60 Minutes" reporter Scott Pelley: Pelley: The gap between rich and poor in this country has never b...

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As someone who has spent the vast majority of his career traveling to markets around the world for Coca-Cola, I have seen, first-hand, the correlation between the strength of a nation and the strength of its press. That's no more so true than right here in America. In fact, you could say I owe my ...

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As someone who has spent the vast majority of his career traveling to markets around the world for Coca-Cola, I have seen, first-hand, the correlation between the strength of a nation and the strength of its press. That's no more so true than right here in America. In fact, you could say I owe my ...

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The recession may have officially ended but its lasting impact on American families is fueling an underlying and largely ignored crisis that threatens to flood our social service systems for years to come. According to the latest annual American Community Survey recently released by U.S. Census ...

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All she wanted was $50,000 from the equity in her house to help pay the bills while looking for a job in nursing. What Imogene Hall got was a brutal lesson in the sometimes shady ways of the mortgage industry. It's a lesson learned by untold numbers of homeowners in Florida, epicenter of the forecl...

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WAMEGO, Kan. — Grateful to have found work in this tough economy, Nick Martin teaches grape growing and winemaking each Saturday to a class of seven students in a simple metal building here at a satellite campus of Highland Community College. Then he drives 14 miles in an 11-year-old Ford Explorer...

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No one goes hungry in America. 1 Hunger is supposed to happen in other places - in distant countries where droughts or storms or famine compel us to donate money and oblige our government to send relief workers and food aid. In reality, hunger also hits much closer to home. According to a new rep...

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WASHINGTON — Raising the retirement age for Social Security would disproportionately hurt low-income workers and minorities, and increase disability claims by older people unable to work, government auditors told Congress. The projected spike in disability claims could harm Social Security's fi...

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston says it's no accident that the middle class has been shrinking. In fact, in a recent conversation with Aaron Task and Daniel Gross on Yahoo's Tech Ticker, Johnston argues that the middle class is a direct result of a maze of subsidies and sweeth...

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For Carol Ann Fuoco, 58, things are not the way they used to be. Ms. Fuoco has lived in the same apartment in Maspeth, Queens, since she was 10. Once, the kitchen in her co-op apartment had brick-patterned wallpaper with ivy poking through the cracks. That was followed by wallpaper with a pattern ...

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FORT MYERS, FLA. -- Chrissanda Walker's bourbon-glazed chicken is just out of the oven. The bread pudding is finished. The collard greens worry her, though; she doesn't want to overcook them. Walker looks at the clock. It's 10 a.m. She's been on her feet since 6. Walker used to make $100,000 a y...

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As confidence in the economic recovery remains low, entrepreneurs are taking a hit. There were 100,000 fewer businesses with at least one employee created this year than last year, putting the pace at the second lowest in the last 18 years, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing Labor Department d...

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WASHINGTON — Raising the retirement age for Social Security would disproportionately hurt low-income workers and minorities, and increase disability claims by older people unable to work, government auditors told Congress. The projected spike in disability claims could harm Social Security's financ...

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Last June, Zaida Paris-Mendez was at the beauty salon when a neighbor called to tell her that people were moving things out of her apartment. She knew immediately that the landlord was trying to evict her, her husband and their two children from their $700-a-month rent-controlled apartment in Will...

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For Carol Ann Fuoco, 58, things are not the way they used to be. Ms. Fuoco has lived in the same apartment in Maspeth, Queens, since she was 10. Once, the kitchen in her co-op apartment had brick-patterned wallpaper with ivy poking through the cracks. That was followed by wallpaper with a pattern ...

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The deficit commission report issued last week is another Saturday Night Special pressed to the temple of the American middle class. "Turn over your money and your benefits or your country will die," the report screams at workers. "You want your country to go bankrupt? No? Then you gotta delay reti...

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House Democrats on Thursday shot down a G.O.P. attempt to roll back federal funding to NPR, a move that many Republicans have called for since the public radio network fired the analyst Juan Williams last month. Republicans in the House tried to advance the defunding measure as part of thei...

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As we prepare for our Thanksgiving bounty, it's hard to believe that there might be a kid on our block who doesn't know when her next meal will come. Just last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that nearly one in four children struggles with hunger. For most Americans with enough ...

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For some Arizona residents, the massive fiscal crisis gripping their state and others has put their lives at risk, NPR reports. Thanks to a $1.5-billion budget deficit, Arizona has had to make some tough choices, including cuts to certain liver and heart transplants paid for by the state, accordi...

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WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are enjoying their own financial stimulus. Despite a stubbornly sour national economy congressional members’ personal wealth collectively increased by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to a new study by the Center for Responsive Politics of feder...

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WASHINGTON -- Extended unemployment insurance put in place to fight the recession prevented the poverty rate from rising to 15.4 percent in 2009, a level unseen since the 1960s, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The government announced in September that that the 2009 poverty rate had ri...

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As an advocate for 401(k) participants, I've found that the only thing more frustrating that the media's cluelessness about America's retirement crisis are the academics who not only don't understand we have one, but who happen to be among the few Americans who can afford to retire. For example, ...

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Nearly 17 million families in America - about 15 percent of all households - had trouble putting enough food on the table at some point last year, a federal report released Monday morning shows. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also found that 5.6 million of these households had problems throu...

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It's an unfortunate fact of the recession -- as unemployment remains high and foreclosures mount, states have noticed a striking increase in the usage of Food Stamps. A record 42 million Americans used food stamps in August, up 17 percent from the same period last year, according to the U.S. Departm...

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Most financial hardships are especially troublesome from the perspective of the homeowners' psychological stability. Couple the initial event like a job loss or medical disability with all of the potential effects like foreclosure or repossession, and it is no surprise that money troubles are at t...

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Today the Presidential Deficit Commission's co-chairs released a radically right-wing budget proposal. They acted without any prior announcement, just three weeks before the entire Commission was scheduled to deliver its collective report. Consider it as a sneak attack on the middle class, a pre-daw...

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Proposed Domestic Cuts and Savings, in billions Reduce Congressional & White House budgets by 15%0.8 Freeze federal salaries, bonuses, and other compensation at non-Defense agencies for three years 15.1 Cut the federal workforce by 10% (2-for-3 replacement rate) 13.2 Eliminate 250,000 non-d...

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NORTH LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Save Florida Homes Inc. and its owner, Mark Guerette, have found foreclosed homes for several needy families here in Broward County, and his tenants could not be more pleased. Fabian Ferguson, his wife and two children now live a two-bedroom home they have transformed from d...

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When job losses and foreclosures began to mount in the recession, leaders of many local charities knew it was time to push their organizations to provide more -- more beds to the homeless, more opportunities for the unemployed, more meals to the growing number of hungry families showing up on their ...

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WASHINGTON — The recession continued to batter families this year, with the number of stay-at-home mothers declining and a sharp rise in the number of children living with their grandparents, according to a new Census Bureau report. The number of children living in their grandparents’ home increas...

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Mary Rakovich cannot pinpoint the moment she realised she was losing her country. But she started to get that feeling in early 2008 during a very heated phase of the Democratic primary contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The TV networks had picked up tapes of the Reverend Jeremiah Wrig...

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FOR more than half a century, Americans have fled the cities in their millions, heading away from crime and poverty towards better schools and safer neighbourhoods in the suburbs. Now poverty is catching up with them. According to two new reports from the Brookings Institution, over the past decad...

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Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, And How to Reclaim American Prosperity, by Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro, FT Press RRP£18.99, $26.99 Just now optimists about the course of US economic policy are hard to find. The imminent prospect of divided government...

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WASHINGTON — The nation's homeownership rate remained at its lowest in more than a decade, hampered by a rise in foreclosures and weak demand for housing. The percentage of households that owned their homes was unchanged at 66.9 percent in the July-September quarter, the Census Bureau said Tuesda...

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NAR's eighth annual Housing Opportunity Pulse Survey reveals that nearly eight out of 10 respondents believe buying a home is a good financial decision, despite ongoing challenges with the economy and housing market. The survey, which measures how affordable housing issues affect consumers, also fou...

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Below are links to the most recent and relevant research from NAR’s economists and other experts about the social and economic benefits of home ownership. 10/20/2010 - Home Ownership and Parenting Owning a home and financial stability may create unique opportunities for parents to engage with thei...

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Introduction Research has consistently shown the importance of the housing sector on the economy and the long-term social and financial benefits to individual homeowners. The economic benefits of the housing market and homeownership are immense and well documented. The housing sector directly ac...

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October 20, 2010 By Selma Hepp, Research Economist The impact of home ownership on children has been documented in numerous academic studies, many of which have found that home ownership has a wide range of positive effects. The positive outcomes include: better health; fewer behavioral problems; ...

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March 5, 1996 In this paper we examine whether homeowning benefits children by testing whether children of homeowners stay in school longer than children of renters and whether daughters of homeowners are less likely to have children as teenagers than daughters of renters. We use both probit mod...

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Introduction A home is shelter first and foremost, but under normal circumstances it also is a proven, sound long-term investment. Abnormal economic swings in recent years have distorted those perceptions and, for many people, the reality as well. But a closer examination of the underlying fundam...

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Financial gain Stability Health benefits Benefits the children Social Benefits ________________________________________ Community Benefits Personal and Social Stability Increase with Homeownership, (Epoch Times, Aug. 18, 2010). The impact of housing on community: A review of scholarly theo...

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A majority of Americans now say they are worried about making their mortgage or rent payments, underscoring the extent of economic anxiety in the country heading into midterm elections. A new Washington Post poll shows that concerns about housing payments have spiked since 2008 despite some improv...

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The short-term (1-3 year) outlook for agricultural commodities is bullish enough. When you start looking out decades, the picture becomes one of an epic bull market. Feast on the following highlights from an August report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, working with the O...

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By CARA BUCKLEY NYTimes.com Public housing is falling apart around the country, as federal money has been unable to keep up with the repair needs of buildings more than half a century old. Over the last 15 years, 150,000 of the nation’s public housing units have been lost, officials said, as a...

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New information is emerging about the economic importance of unmarried women and the vital contributions they make to our economy. Almost half (47 percent) of all women in America today are unmarried—divorced, separated, widowed, or never married. Unmarried women now make up nearly a quarter (24 per...

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By Greg Ip Sunday, October 24, 2010 Washington Post We're barely two years past the banking crisis, still weathering the mortgage crisis and nervously watching Europe struggle with its sovereign debt crisis. Yet every economic seer has a favorite prediction about what part of the economy the n...

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By AddisonWiggin The Daily Reckoning Every month, JP Morgan Chase dispatches a researcher to several supermarkets in Virginia. The task - to comparison shop for 31 items. In July, the firm's personal shopper came back with a stunning report: Wal-Mart had raised its prices 5.8% during the prev...

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By: Carrie Bay 10/26/2010 DSNews.com The Homeownership Preservation Foundation (HPF) says calls coming into its hotline from distressed homeowners looking for help to stave off foreclosure increased 7.4 percent in the third quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter. HPF administers ...

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Huffington Post For more and more seniors, retirement doesn’t mean a debt-free life of leisure. An increasing number of Americans aged 65 and older are declaring bankruptcy, according to a recent study by John Pottow, professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School. Those aged 65 and old...

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It's the most compelling, preoccupying question we measure ourselves by every day, and it has very little to do with money. I'm talking about "worth" as in self-worth and "value," as in the degree to which we feel valued by others and valuable in the world. Nothing more powerfully influences our beh...

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By Fareed Zakaria The American dream for me, growing up in India in the 1970s, looked something like the opening credits of Dallas. The blockbuster TV series began with a kaleidoscope of big, brassy, sexy images — tracts of open land, shiny skyscrapers, fancy cars, cowboy businessmen and the very...

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Gary Faley, a retired freight yard clerk in Flint, Mich., paid attention the other day when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she will schedule a vote in November on a plan to give an extra $250 to retirees who will not receive a cost-of-living increase in their benefit checks next year. ...

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Nearly one in five Americans are either immigrants or were born in the United States to at least one parent from abroad, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. The second generation was more likely to be better educated and earn more and less likely to be living in poverty. “This suggests that the children...

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On October 27, The Future of Children, a joint project between Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, will host an event and release a new issue of the journal. The issue reports that unwed parents face a host of problems that complicate their ability to get good jobs, form stable fam...

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM Washington, DC On October 13, Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.) joined former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, New York City Deputy Mayor Steve Goldsmith and other experts in a Hamilton Project forum focuse...

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A Liberty City woman is fighting foreclosure, claiming forgery, fraud and bank negligence in a drama that has her family home at stake.Ten people spanning three generations share a single bathroom in what's left of Annie Edwards' crumbling home in Liberty City. There are holes in the wood floors and...

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Redistribution of wealth during the 1920's was devastating for America in the 30's In the Golden Age a small portion of American businessmen controlled a great portion of America's wealth. That disproportionate balance of ownership led to high unemployment, tremendous loss of personal property, fa...

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Nancy Jacobini had applied for a mortgage modification when JPMorgan Chase broke into her house and attempted to change the locks on Sept. 28. "I'm locked in my bathroom," said Jacobini during a 911 call. "Somebody broke into my house!" It turned out the bank wanted to secure the property even th...

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WASHINGTON — A new ranking of the nation's 400 biggest charities shows donations dropped by 11 percent overall last year as the Great Recession ended – the worst decline in 20 years since the Chronicle of Philanthropy began keeping a tally. The Philanthropy 400 report to be released Monday shows su...

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PEOPLE often remember the past with exaggerated fondness. Sometimes, however, important aspects of life really were better in the old days. Enlarge This Image I. David G. Klein During the three decades after World War II, for example, incomes in the United States rose rapidly and at about the...

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by NAR Research Staff Recently, homeownership has been under attack. Media reports and pundits have questioned the wisdom of social policies – such as the mortgage interest deduction or the recent homebuyer tax credit -- that encourage and support homeownership. Given one “popular” view that housin...

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THE recession has taken a toll on the institution of marriage, we keep hearing. Last month, for instance, when it was reported that the proportion of Americans aged 25 to 34 who are married fell below the proportion who have never married, it was quickly attributed to the economic downturn. Young ad...

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By MICHAEL POWELL and MOTOKO RICH This is not what a recovery is supposed to look like. In Atlanta, the Bank of America tower, the tallest in the Southeast, is nearly a fifth vacant, and bank officials just wrestled a rent cut from the developer. In Cherry Hill, N.J., 10 percent of the houses on ...

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Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it's been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before -- and they're doing it behind closed doors. Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this...

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Income inequality makes the poor more conservative -- more likely to support smaller government and actually to perpetuate income inequality, two academics argue in a report released earlier this year. The report, "Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self-Reinforcing Link Between ...

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Middle Class Slams Brakes on Spending BySARA MURRAY WSJ Middle-class Americans made their deepest spending cuts in more than two decades, slashing spending on such discretionary items as restaurant meals and alcohol during the recession. Households in the middle fifth of the population sliced ...

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America's graduating youth are not only faced with more challenges than any generation since the Great Depression, we are also faced with more autonomy and more decisions with what to do with our time since so many of us are not employed at the normal 9-5. In the age of the internet there are more o...

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55 African Americans have suffered disproportionately from foreclosures due to racially discriminatory lending practices, a new study shows . The study authored by Douglas Massey and Jacob Rugh of Princeton, looks at racially segregated neighborhoods, where the percentage of minorities (particula...

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How Ordinary Folks Can Fix America By Rick Newman USA Today The Chinese outwork us, the Indians outsmart us, and the Germans outvacation us. Our biggest corporations have become computerized Potemkin shells that crank out profits without people. Our middle class is too obese to hustle down to th...

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The Great Recession increased poverty in 31 of 50 U.S. states last year, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. These states, which all saw both the number and the percentage of residents living in poverty rise in 2009, were almost entirely concentrated in the South. In 2009, 14...

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WASHINGTON — The recession seems to be socking Americans in the heart as well as the wallet: Marriages have hit an all-time low while pleas for food stamps have reached a record high and the gap between rich and poor has grown to its widest ever. The long recession technically ended in mid-2009,...

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The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the rest of us. According to Forbes magazine's annual survey, just released, the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this ye...

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By 24/7 Wall Street: Today's corporate America is dominated by service companies, tech firms, and huge retailers which have thousands of locations and hundreds of thousands of workers. At the end of the decade following WWII, corporate America looked very different from it does now. Fifty five yea...

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Americans vastly underestimate the degree of wealth inequality in America, and we believe that the distribution should be far more equitable than it actually is, according to a new study. Or, as the study's authors put it: "All demographic groups -- even those not usually associated with wealth r...

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Op-Ed Columnist NYT The Responsibility Deficit By DAVID BROOKS One of the oddities of the current moment is that the country wants a radical change in government but not a radical change in policy. On the one hand, voters are completely disgusted with Washington. On the other hand, th...

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According to new data recently released by the Census Bureau, 14.3 percent of Americans were living in poverty in 2009. In September of 2009 we performed an analysis in which we simulated what would happen to the poverty rate over the next several years based on projections of the unemployment rat...

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The number of people living in poverty in the richest country in the world remains stubbornly high, higher than it was back in the 1970s. The 1960s and 1970s brought considerable progress for the poor but were followed by the lost decade of the 1980s, during which little additional progress occurr...

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Value of College Degree Is Growing, Study Says By TAMAR LEWIN NYT Despite rising tuition and student-loan debt levels, the long-term payoff from earning a college degree is growing, according to a report to be issued Tuesday by the College Board. Post a CommentWorkers with a coll...

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The cost of living in America has gone up about fifteen fold since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. Of course, not all prices have risen at the same rate. The value of coffee has increased fifteen times from its price 234 years ago. This is a similar increase to the value of th...

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The End of Social Security as We Know It By Ian Mathias Baltimore, Maryland On September 30, America will quietly begin a generational shift. This will be the final day of the government’s fiscal year 2010, and consequentially, a very notable day for Social Security. September 30 will be the la...

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NEW YORK - A sure sign of a dysfunctional market economy is the persistence of unemployment. In the United States today, one out of six workers who would like a full-time job can't find one. It is an economy with huge unmet needs and yet vast idle resources. The housing market is another U.S. ano...

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New National Housing Survey Results Released Fannie Mae has released results of its second survey this year on Americans' views and attitudes toward housing. The comprehensive survey polled homeowners and renters between June 2010 and July 2010 to assess their confidence in homeownership as an in...

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Fact Sheet Fannie Mae National Housing Survey Key Findings The Fannie Mae National Housing Survey polled homeowners and renters between June 2010 and July 2010 to assess their confidence in homeownership as an investment, the current state of their household finances, views on the U.S. housing fin...

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Since the Start of the Great Recession, More Children Raised by Grandparents by Gretchen Livingston and Kim Parker, Pew Research Center September 9, 2010 One child in ten in the United States lives with a grandparent, a share that increased slowly and steadily over the past decade before rising...

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Most 'Re-employed' Workers Say They're Overqualified for Their New Job by Rich Morin, Senior Editor, Pew Research Center Workers who suffered a spell of unemployment during Great Recession are, on average, less satisfied with their new jobs than workers who didn't. They are more likely to consid...

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Lost Income, Lost Friends -- and Loss of Self-Respect The Impact of Long-Term Unemployment by Rich Morin and Rakesh Kochhar, Pew Research Center Long-term unemployment takes a much deeper toll than short-term unemployment on a person's finances, emotional well-being and career prospects, accord...

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Proud Patriots -- and Harsh Critics of Government Nearly all Americans consider themselves patriotic and voice pride in being American. Sizeable demographic and political differences do emerge, however, when it comes to intense expressions of patriotism. And many of those who voice strong patriot...

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The Great Recession at 30 Months Half of Work Force Has Taken a Job-Related Hit, but Some Green Shoots of Optimism More than half (55%) of all adults in the labor force say that since the Great Recession began 30 months ago, they have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in ...

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The Return of the Multi-Generational Family Household Summary of Findings This report documents major changes in family household living arrangements that have unfolded over the past three decades and accelerated during the Great Recession. Its principal focus is on the revival since 1980 of th...

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The Millennials by Scott Keeter and Paul Taylor This is part of a Pew Research Center series of reports exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of the teens and twenty-somethings that make up the Millennial Generation Generations, like people, have personalities. Their collective identiti...

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Home for the Holidays...and Every Other Day Recession Brings Many Young Adults Back to the Nest by Wendy Wang and Rich Morin, Pew Research Center The journey home for Thanksgiving won't be quite so far this year for many young adults. Instead of traveling across country or across town, many gro...

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What Divides America? Immigration and Income -- Not Race -- Are Seen as Primary Sources of Social Conflict by Rich Morin, Pew Research Center It may surprise anyone following the charges of racism that have flared up during the debate over President Obama's health care proposals, but a survey tak...

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Recession Turns a Graying Office Grayer America’s Changing Work Force Overview The American work force is graying -- and not just because the American population itself is graying. Older adults are staying in the labor force longer, and younger adults are staying out of it longer. Both trends t...

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Most Middle-Aged Adults Are Rethinking Retirement Plans The Threshold Generation By Rich Morin, Senior Editor, Pew Research Center In the midst of a recession that has taken a heavy toll on many nest eggs, just over half of all working adults ages 50 to 64 say they may delay their retirement --...

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Through Boom and Bust: Minorities, Immigrants and Homeownership by Rakesh Kochhar, Associate Director for Research, Pew Hispanic Center; Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Research Analyst; Daniel Dockterman, Research Assistant The boom-and-bust cycle in the U.S. housing market over the past decade and a half ...

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Luxury or Necessity? The Public Makes a U-Turn by Rich Morin and Paul Taylor, Pew Research Center From the kitchen to the laundry room to the home entertainment center, Americans are paring down the list of familiar household appliances they say they can't live without, according to a new nation...

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No Place Like Home -- Even if the Value Is in the Tank by D'Vera Cohn, Senior Writer, Pew Research Center Not even a housing-led recession can shake Americans' faith in the blessings of homeownership. House prices may be falling, foreclosures rising and residential sales weak -- yet the vast ...

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Baby Boomers: The Gloomiest Generation by D'Vera Cohn, Senior Writer, Pew Social & Demographic Trends Project America's baby boomers are in a collective funk. Members of the large generation born from 1946 to 1964 are more downbeat about their lives than are adults who are younger or older, acco...

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Who Wants To Be Rich? The Currently Hard-Pressed Put a Higher Personal Priority on Being Wealthy than Do the Well-to-Do by Richard Morin, Senior Editor, Pew Social & Demographic Trends Project Who says Americans worship at the feet of the almighty dollar? Not the American public. Only 13% of adul...

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Immigration to Play Lead Role In Future U.S. Growth U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050 by Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn, Pew Research Center Executive Summary If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and...

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Who Flies the Flag? Not Always Who You Might Think A Closer Look at Patriotism by Carroll Doherty, Associate Director, Editorial, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press America is a patriotic country. Pew's political values surveys over the past 20 years have found overwhelming agreement...

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Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007 Political Landscape More Favorable To Democrats Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved t...

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A Portrait of Generation Next How Young People View Their Lives, Futures and Politics Download the complete report A new generation has come of age, shaped by an unprecedented revolution in technology and dramatic events both at home and abroad. They are Generation Next, the cohort of young ...

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Working After Retirement: The Gap Between Expectations and Reality More than three quarters of today's workers (77%) expect to work for pay even after they retire, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Of those who feel this way, most say it's because they'll want to, not because they'll...

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Americans See Less Progress on Their Ladder of Life Download the complete report In the past four years, some of the edge has come off good old American optimism. Just under half (49%) of the respondents in a new Pew Research Center survey rate the quality of the life they expect to be leadi...

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Once Again, The Future Ain't What It Used to Be The idea that each generation of children will grow up to be better off than the one that preceded it has always been a part of the American dream. But barely a third of adults expect things to work out that way for today's children, according to a ne...

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Cities are being overwhelmed with applications for public housing units. In Atlanta, 30,000 people lined up to apply for 455 vouchers. Roanoke, Va., opened the waiting list for the first time in three years and added 2,400 people – there are no vacancies. When Chicago opened its public housing...

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More than 72 percent of American adults say that home ownership is a part of their personal American dream, down from 77 percent six months ago, according to a survey for Trulia.com. About 23 percent said their attitude toward homeownership has grown more positive in the last six months, while 19...

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According to a new online survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults conducted in May by Harris Interactive and commissioned by the Arlington, Virginia-based National Apartment Association (NAA), 76 percent of consumers deemed renting to be the more favorable option to owning a home in the current real e...

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A survey released Thursday by Trulia.com and RealtyTrac shows that only 1 percent of homeowners with a mortgage say walking away would be their first choice if they were unable to make their payments. If their mortgage were to go underwater – meaning the property value drops below the amount sti...

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Like a ripple effect, the recent recession will impact Americans for years to come, according to a study released Monday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Conducted by Professor Joe Peek, Gatton Endowed Chair in international banking and financial economics at the University of Kentuck...

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The housing crisis has changed how Americans view homeownership, according to a survey of public attitudes by Fannie Mae. The number of people who view homeownership as a safe investment declined from 83 percent in 2003 to 70 percent in 2009. In addition: 48 percent of those surveyed said bank...

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1937 13 months 1945 8 months 1948 11 months 1953 10 months 1957 8 months 1960 10 months 1969 11 months 1973 16 months 1980 6 months 1981 16 months 1990 8 months 2001 8 months Currently December 2007 to present ...

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You can do all kinds of things to get people into a house, which we did; the real problem is making it so they can stay there. You can't magically MAKE an unaffordabel home someone streched to buy with an exotic loan product be affordable. Even if the President of the most powerful nation in the w...

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Housing in America: The Next Decade, a new research paper authored by John K. McIlwain, senior resident fellow of ULI, predicts; * Overall home prices will likely decline an additional 10 percent in 2010. * The growing number of consumers who are choosing to walk away from their mortgages s...

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