Doomsday for Social Security and Medicare has come a little closer, thanks to the deep recession. The costs of administering Social Security are now expected to exceed tax revenues in 2016, a year earlier than expected. The trust funds for the program are now projected to run out in 2037, four years earlier than envisioned a year ago. (BusinessWeek)

Who else knew?: Billions of dollars were withdrawn from accounts at Bernie Madoff's firm in the months before he was arrested. (New York Times)

In the second part of a series comparing the current recession to the Great Depression, Price Fishback describes what actually happened to our economic system last fall and contrasts it with what happened in 1929. (New York Times/Freakonomics)

Evidently, it's not the best time in history to be graduating from business school. (MSNBC)

Family caregivers are facing increased financial and emotional hardships as they struggle to continue providing care to loved ones with chronic illnesses or disabilities. (Kansas City Star)

A new report from the bureau of Labor Statistics yields some interesting information about who is hiring and who is firing. (New York Times/Economix)

Carreman, a French textiles company, is outshipping and has just offered nine of its workers a choice of redeployment to India, accepting a 96 per cent pay cut into the bargain. Otherwise, they will be fired. (Times of London)

The gains made in homeownership by African-Americans and native-born Latinos have been eroding faster in the economic downturn than those of whites, according to a report. (New York Times)

Home prices fell in nearly nine out of every 10 U.S. cities in the first quarter of this year as first-time buyers looking for bargains dominated the market. (Associated Press)

If you're having trouble making ends meet because of the recession, it may be time to move. Los Angeles tops this list of America's most overpriced cities. (ABC News)

Is a recovery in the offing? Recent headlines say so, but economists like Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini aren't sure it'll be all that soon. (Recessionwire)

Tags: briefing, Bureau of Labor Statistics, business school, Medicare, recession, recessionwire, Social Security, today's news

Double X's Emily Bazelon has been writing an ongoing "recessionitis" series on how the recession is affecting family, work, and life. At the end of her last piece, she asked readers whether they'd been forced to move homes, cities, or even countries because of the economic downturn. She'll be posting her piece with the results next week, but there were too many moving stories to include in one article. So this week, the On-Ramp will be running serialialzed excerpts of emails from readers who were kind enough to share with us their stories of the recession and mobility.

"I am a native New Yorker and marketing and communications executive. I was recruited in 2001 to go to Hong Kong to work for a huge multinational agency. It was right about the time the dot-com bubble started to burst in the U.S. and I figured it would take a while to hit Asia. It did take a while, and in 2003 I left that position to study Chinese and picked up work as a newspaper copy editor in Taiwan. Until recently I was the country manager for the Taipei office of a different multi-national communications consultancy. Several months back, on an optimistic bender (I had a few interviews lined up), I decided it was high time to give New York another try. Well, I've been back in the city for four months now. Those opportunities all went away. Have had very few leads of value. Now, this 15-year P.R. and communications veteran is going to go BACK to Taiwan and work as an English teacher (something I had dabbled in previously) because at least it's a paycheck. I will also be able to join my fiancee there. We had applied for a K-1 fiancée visa for her to come here, marry me and for us to start a life in New York. But of course that was just a silly dream. If I don't have a job, I can't get her the visa. I wouldn't even be able to support myself, let alone her for a while, in the U.S. anyway"—Jon

"Until 3 weeks ago I had lived in Delaware all my life. I moved to Maryland, away from my family and my fiancé, in order to accept a job. It's just a retail position, but it seems like a godsend to me now. I had been working for a temp agency since July of last year, quite happily filling office positions throughout New Castle County. Then, a few days before Christmas, my last assignment ended. I waited a week or two for a call about a new assignment that never came. I stopped calling the agency after about a month, thinking that I had pestered them enough, and that if they couldn't find work for me I'd have to find it for myself. I went through the newspapers, online job search engines, Craigslist; every resource you could imagine, and I couldn't find a job anywhere. I put in an average of three applications/resumes each day for months. I am so lucky that my wonderful fiancé, Jeff, was willing to help me pay my bills while I tried to find work. By March I began to believe that there was no work in Delaware. That's when I went to visit my cousin in Maryland and began to pepper my resume throughout the Gaithersburg area. Within a week I had a job interview, and within two weeks I had a job. Jeff and I absolutely hate being apart, but we're getting married in September and we both need to have a steady income in order to pay for the wedding."—Sarah

"I am a 25-year-old college grad living and working in Ukraine on United States Government-funded technical assistance projects. My job security seems high and the income tax-free nature of my compensation makes my salary very good. After being in the region doing this kind of work for the last three years, my long-time girlfriend finally laid down the law. I must return to the U.S. if this were going to continue to work (yes she is a very very patient person). I was all set to move back to New York, and take any job I could find while I waited to get into law school. Then the economy tanked. Now there is no way I can support myself living in New York. I could burn through my hard earned savings, but I will need every penny of it and more for my law degree. No, your last article hasn't deterred me from following my dream. My position is too good to give up in this economy. So instead of moving back, I have accepted a new posting and will be moving to Paraguay in a few months after my project here closes. My girlfriend has managed to survive the first round of layoffs at her firm. She has very little work experience and rightly doesn't think now is the time to drop out of the job market to move with me to Paraguay. So it seems the job market in New York is just good enough to keep her there, but bad enough to keep me from getting back. After a recent trip to visit her, she has finally decided that this won't continue to work long distance. In any other economy, I could pick up, move, and try my luck in New York, but not in the worst economy in my entire lifetime. While my bank account and job prospects seem like they are still in the year 2007, my emotional state is closer to the Dow the day Bear Sterns went under. "—Ryan

Tags: family, homes, mobility, moving, recession, relocation, work

Women haven’t been hit with job losses quite as hard as men during this downturn, in part, it's thought, because they’re more likely to take jobs in recession-proof industries like health care and teaching. Kerry Howley, writing on XX Factor, doesn’t think playing it safe is necessarily occasion for applause.

Her beef: “Must an article on gender and the recession immediately go all Mars/Venus on the subject? Since the start of the credit crisis we've seen this kind of pseudo-feminist drivel all over the place. The crash itself was supposedly "testosterone-driven." Women, on the other hand, "might have been able to temper the excesses that led to the current financial crisis." Women could have prevented the whole thing, apparently, by playing prudent schoolmarm to their cowboy colleagues. It's not a particularly inspired vision of the future of women in business.” (Read the rest on XX Factor.)

Tags: gender, Kerry Howley, mancession, recession, stereotypes

Despite the sour economy, mainstream music has been remarkably free of songs about tough times. Country music seems to be the exception. (Associated Press)

Dollar stores are cleaning up: Nearly half of all U.S. households now shop at the low-price stores each month. (Los Angeles Times)

Faced with tough economic realities, more adult children are moving back into their parents' homes. The AARP found that 11% of adults between 35 and 44 were living with their parents or in-laws. (New York Times)

More than half (55 per cent) of employees are working from home more frequently since the financial crisis began. (BusinessWeek)

New unemployment claims rose to 637,000 last week, despite expectations that they would fall. Ongoing claims also set a record at 6.56 million. (Bloomberg)

With a growing number of people competing for a dwindling number of job openings, some employers are driving down pay and benefits for new hires. (Associated Press)

Not so long ago, three-button power suits - slickly conservative, oversize and overpriced - blared of Wall Street success. Now, with banking out of fashion, the suits are remaining on the racks at retail stores. (New York Times)

Responding to the recession, many top universities are shrinking their PhD programs. (Inside Higher Ed)

Many Americans are driving less in order to save money, but with gas prices down from last summer road trips are poised to make a comeback. (Wall Street Journal)

Retail sales fell unexpectedly in April, indicating that rising unemployment is prompting consumers to conserve cash. (Bloomberg)

Tips for using credit to help you manage your cash flow and get back to the work of delivering great products and services. (Recessionwire)

Direct-sales businesses that rely on home-based representatives to peddle their wares are seeing their sales forces rapidly expand. (USA Today)

Tags: country music, dollar stores, flex time, jobless claims, news briefing, recession, recessionwire, road trips, work

Double X's Emily Bazelon has been writing an ongoing "recessionitis" series on how the recession is affecting family, work, and life. At the end of her last piece, she asked readers whether they'd been forced to move homes, cities, or even countries because of the economic downturn. She'll be posting her piece with the results next week, but there were too many moving stories to include in one article. So this week, the On-Ramp will be running serialized excerpts of emails from readers who were kind enough to share with us their stories of the recession and mobility.

"I have quite a history with living overseas due to economic circumstances. My mother raised three children with no outside support and only a high-school education. My siblings and I all earned scholarships and college degrees from reputable schools (the first in our family), but none of us have earned more than $30,000 per year. Living overseas was the only feasible way I could support my brother's education and my mother's bills. I worked for seven years as a teacher in Korea, as an actor in the Philippines for one year, and for several months teaching in Japan as well. I recently decided to attend law school and have returned to the U.S. for the first time in 8 years, but now I have to go back to work in Japan in order to make my mother's mortgage payments; she was laid off last year; my sister last week. Korea's exchange rate has bottomed out so badly that I would need to double my paycheck there just to make the same amount in dollars as I did 15 months ago. My sister has followed work from Chicago to North Carolina to Arizona. I have followed work from Seoul to Manila to Tokyo and back again. Almost all of my extended family has dispersed in order to find work which barely puts them above the poverty line, if at all. —John

"My husband and I are actually stuck in a place we don't like because of the recession. We're both originally from Maryland, and when we graduated from college there three years ago we decided to strike out. I got a job in New York and he got one way out in New Jersey, so we settled in a New Jersey suburb. Our jobs are okay, but we hate New Jersey and miss Maryland. We had planned to stay in our current jobs for about 2 years to get some experience under our belts, then start looking for jobs in DC. Right after we hit year 2, the economy went into free fall mode, and now there are no jobs to be had. We might be able to get one back in DC, but can't survive on one of our incomes. I know that we're lucky to have jobs, especially because more than 20 percent of the workforce at my company has been laid off, but to look at the foreseeable future in a place that we don't like that's a four-hour drive away from our families and friends is really bleak."—Marie

"I have been looking for a job in Atlanta, GA (my hometown) for months now. I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, went to the University of Georgia, got a job in Atlanta and moved 25 miles away from my entire family. Next week I am moving to Baltimore, MD. It is the only place that was actually hiring. It was a horrible decision. I had to choose a job over my family, all my friends, and my boyfriend who has a great job in Atlanta and can't even consider moving anytime soon. In this economy, though, I had to take the job. It was an increase in salary for essentially the same job I was doing. And I didn't know if anything would present itself in Atlanta. So this Southern girl is packing up and moving above the Mason-Dixon line to Maryland where I know no one. It was economic stability versus people, and in these times unfortunately I had to go with the job."—Jennifer

Tags: family, job hunt, life, mobility, moving, recession, relocating, unemployment, work

In the recession, more people are learning how to re-cut a dress or alter their Levi’s to look like Dior. Renata Espinosa looks at the new breed of DIY seamstresses. (The Daily Beast)

The recession has been a boon for the mental health industry: the use of psych services doubled in the first four months of this year. (Psych Central)

Mommy vice? One in three moms surveyed this spring said they have turned to a vice such as overeating, drinking, drugs and/or gambling to cope with the stress. (CNBC)

Broadway theaters aren’t seeing audience declines as a result of the recession, and historically New York’s theater row has been virtually impervious to economic declines. (Reuters)

Recently released data from the Mexican census show that emigration from Mexico to other countries has declined by 25 percent as a result of a lack of jobs in the U.S. (New York Times)

Drug makers are expanding programs to help people afford medicines amid the prolonged recession. (Wall Street Journal)

One man’s layoff nightmare: employment to food stamps in one week. (Chicago Tribune)

Reports indicate that the economy’s tentative recovery has been moving in fits and starts, though there is evidence that the worst has passed. (Associated Press)

There is a new spate of angry advertising campaigns that seek to channel the outrage, frustration and fear felt by consumers hit hard by the recession. (New York Times)

Baby boomers have been the biggest losers in the stock markets, according to new data. Many say they are now worried about the future. (Forbes)

Tags: advertisers, baby boomers, Broadway, DIY, food stamps, gambling, mental health, news, recession, recessionwire, stock market

Double X's Emily Bazelon has been writing an ongoing "recessionitis" series on how the recession is affecting family, work, and life. At the end of her last piece, she asked readers whether they'd been forced to move homes, cities, or even countries because of the economic downturn. She'll be posting her piece with the results next week, but there were too many moving stories to include in one short article. So this week, the On-Ramp will be running serialialzed excerpts of emails from some of those readers who were kind enough to share with us their stories of how the recession has shifted their mobility.

"In August of last year more than 200 people overflowed the largest conference room available in my office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza. We were all told that our job was being outsourced to another provider based in Malvern Pennsylvania. The delivery was so well-crafted most people left with a smile on their face. After digesting the information, and analyzing their incessant requests to not consider the move a ‘layoff' I began to get suspicious. They promised everyone that if they want to keep their job, they would have a position for them in Malvern. I assume they were expecting most people to decline the offer since most people living in New York would not willingly move to suburban PA for a mediocre job. They even offered a sweetheart deal for most along with several bonuses and a relocation package. Originally I expected a large wave of notices after each retention bonus was paid out, but other than a few people, no one left and waited out until the bitter end. I'm a 23-year-old with no debt or obligations and parents in the immediate area, so I had no objection to hitting up the job market again. I started applying in September and after a few interviews I realized the bonuses I was promised were not reasonably going to be matched by competing firms so I stopped looking until the bonus paid out. A month before the final bonus I started looking for jobs again and noticed a dramatic reduction in the job postings. Not every job posting especially promising but without them I just felt that all hope was lost. Two weeks before my last day with the firm I decided on the whim to forgo the 8 weeks severance I was promised, along with unemployment, for the mediocre job in suburban PA. It took a lot to swallow my pride but at least I'm in good company, as a significant amount of employees took the job. Now I just hope all those large relocation packages my firm offered don't sink the bank!"—Branko

"In 2006, I changed jobs and moved from the New York suburbs to Atlanta, partly for a job opportunity and partly to be closer to my father, who was having health problems. (He died about six months later.) The small company where I was working ran into financial problems, and I was laid off less than a year after I started. A few months later, I got a job at a larger company that I hoped would be more stable. I moved from Atlanta to Philadelphia. Less than a year later, the company "reorganized" and I was laid off again. I've been unemployed since late last year. Happily, I was just offered a new job, and I'm about to move to Washington DC. I'm hoping that will be my last move for a while! Even though I was glad to find new jobs in new cities, moving has some significant down sides. After I was laid off the last time, I had some health problems. My family was far away, and since I'd only been here a few months, I hadn't made any close friends yet. Most of the people I'd met were co-workers, and many of them had been laid off as well, and had moved to find new jobs. It was very hard to be in the hospital and have no one close to me to call on for help. It made me realize how important it is to have people around you who care about you, something that's difficult if you have to move every year or two. Phone calls and email aren't the same. I'm hoping that my next job will be more long lasting, and I'll be able to meet people and settle down in my new city. "—Karen

"The reason I'm writing: I'm part of a distinct demographic of young individuals who have left my home state in droves. I'm a former video and television producer and even used to do my job directly for the government of Michigan and helped our Governor tape video messages imploring young folks like myself to stay. I was an intern, and my need for health insurance and benefits started to become an issue. The state didn't have the ability to hire me full time. So off to the private sector I went; working at a TV station in Lansing, MI making the saddest TV commercials ever for G.M. and Hummer dealers who couldn't sell their wares, with an office window that looked across the street at a G.M. assembly plant being torn down. I shotgunned my resume and went from the state of highest unemployment to one of the lowest--Wyoming. I was gobbled up by a high tech/video production hybrid firm that provides stock footage and makes iPhone apps for NCAA sports and all sorts of high end video logistics. I guess my story is this: I couldn't find a job in Michigan if I tried. Even the people who WANTED to hire me couldn't, and even Governor Granholm who wanted to keep a burgeoning creative class in state couldn't pull any strings - the money and bureaucratic agility just weren't there."—Craig

Tags: Emily Bazelon, life, mobility, recession, relocating for the recession, unemployment, work

Fire-sale auctions of mansions, yachts, sports cars and other trappings of wealth have become increasingly common as the rich become less rich. (Wall Street Journal)

New home building figures have unexpectedly hit a record low, with unemployment and foreclosures deterring builders. (CNN/Money)

"Green shoots of human compassion abound," writes Derek Thompson. "So should we all stop worrying and learn to love a world with much less money?" (The Atlantic)

The unemployment rate for adult men is ahead of the national average at 9.4 percent versus 8.9 percent for all workers. The implications may hamper the recovery as families that once had male breadwinners struggle. (Reuters)

As the national economy transforms in the wake of the economic crisis, growth and development across the country are moving away from the suburban and exurban fringe and toward center-cities and close-in suburbs. (The Big Money)

Hollywood's response to the recession? Maintain a fabulous facade on the cheap while paring expenses behind the scenes. (New York Times)

With home prices having dropped, the majority of those being sold now in the U.S. are considered "affordable." The most "affordable" city in the nation by this metric is Indianapolis. (CNN/Money)

When restaurant chains are floundering, what accounts for the sizzle in P.F. Chang's wok? The company has avoided wholesale restructuring and panicky discounting. (Slate)

The era of operating easily on borrowed money is over, at least for now, for businesses as well as consumers. That in turn is changing the way companies operate. (New York Times)

"Only the optimists survive" would be an appropriate motto for leaders in today's and tomorrow's business climate, writes Waren Bennis. (BusinessWeek)

Tags: auction, compassion, credit, daily briefing, home sales, optimism, P.F. Chang's, personal finance, recession, recessionwire, yacht

With tightened budgets and layoffs abounding, is it okay to ask for a raise this year? Tread carefully and the request can be both sensitive and successful. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Welcome to the summer of the furlough. During this recession, everyone from universities to technology companies are using furloughs as a way to cut payroll without further trimming their staffs. (Fortune)

As cash-strapped consumers face escalating food prices, Wal-Mart, Kraft, Unilever and Campbell are using the magical $1 price to appeal to people cooking more at home. (USA Today)

The Obama administration is discussing the creation of a regulatory commission that would have broad authority to protect consumers who use a wide variety of financial products. (Washington Post)

The travel industry is banking on bargains and special deals to spur business this summer, as many consumers hit by the recession are staying put. (National Public Radio)

"It's hard not to agree with economists who suggest that today's young Americans are the first generation that will be less well-off than their parents," writes Nathaniel Loewentheil. (Huffington Post)

Just as optimism began to bloom, U.S. housing starts hit a record low. The homebuilding sector may have to endure a long bottoming process. (BusinessWeek)

With mortgage rates holding below 5%, there has rarely been a better time to refinance your home. But with tighter credit and falling home prices, the process has never been more difficult. (Wall Street Journal)

Video game makers, previously thought to be immune to the recession, are starting to feel some pain. (CNN/Money)

New Orleans and Louisiana, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, are actually seeing economic growth amid the recession. (Christian Science Monitor)

Tags: budget, furlough, home buying, layoffs, mortgage, New Orleans, news briefing, optimism, raise, recession, recessionwire, refinancing

Recently on Planet Money, host Adam Davidson got into a tiff with Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor who oversees the Treasury's bank bailout. In the days since, their argument—which lasted all of two minutes—has ballooned into a comment war that taps into lefty passions about the economy, the future of the American family, and latent sexism.

Davidson is disappointed because he was hoping the Congressional Oversight Panel, which Warren chairs, would be something like the 9/11 Commission, a respected nonpartisan advisory board of "senior statesmen" that would sagely guide the administration on how to save the economy. "Senior statesmen" is a phrase he repeats a few times. In the clip, he raises his voice and needles her in a way that makes it clear he does not think she qualifies as one of these "senior statesman." Warren, deeply beloved by the left, is a longtime advocate of the American middle class she believes to be "under assault" by the credit economy. In the clip, he accuses her of pushing her "narrow" pet issues instead of thinking about what's best for the economy as a whole.

This is a reasonable exchange, as Warren is in a powerful position to influence the bailout, and she does have a very particular set of views. But NPR listeners did not hear it this way. "Acted disgracefully and should be reprimanded," wrote one listener of Davidson. "Disrespectful." "Calloused." "He will inherit Sheol"—a fancy NPR way of saying Davidson should go to Hell. And then the kicker, which is probably what forced him to apologize:

"His interview was disgusting for attacking Elizabeth, a woman. I seriously doubt Adam would have done the same type of attack on Timothy Geithner or Larry Sommers."

So is it true? Is Warren just another of those right-brain girly economists who choose to tug on heartstrings rather than crunching numbers? Or are NPR listeners all just too right brain for their own good?

Tags: adam davidson, elizabeth warren, planet money