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The Next Bubble Is About to Burst:
College Grads Face Dwindling Jobs and Mounting Loans
Young people between the ages of 16 and 24 face an unemployment rate nearly twice that of the rest of the population, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. 2010's 18.4 percent rate for youth was the worst in the 60 years that economists have collected such data. ColorLines notes that in 2010, 8.4 percent of white college graduates were unemployed, 13.8 percent of Latino graduates, and a dismal 19 percent of black graduates.
Those bright, shiny new degrees simply aren't worth the paper they're printed on all too often. The cost of a college degree is up some 3,400 percent since 1972, but as we all know too well, household incomes haven't increased by anything close to that number -- not for the bottom 99 percent of us, anyway. [In Full]
Cities that weathered housing bust now suffering
By DEREK KRAVITZ and ALEX VEIGA
AP Business Writers
May 31 2011
WASHINGTON Even cities that weathered the housing market crash with relatively little damage are suffering now.
Severe price declines have spread to Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis and Cleveland, which had mostly withstood the bust in housing since 2006. The damage has now gone well beyond cities hit hardest by unemployment and foreclosures, such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.
"We didn't enjoy the highs and the lows like other cities," said Kay Weeks, a Realtor with Ebby Halliday in Dallas, where prices fell nearly 1 percent in March and are expected to keep falling. "But when we get bad news nationally, people take notice and cut back on spending and buying homes."
Home prices in big metro areas have sunk to their lowest since 2002, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city monthly index showed Tuesday. Since the bubble burst in 2006, prices have fallen more than they did during the Great Depression.
The index, which covers metro areas that include about 70 percent of U.S. households, is updated every quarter and provides a three-month average. The March data is the latest available.
Foreclosures have forced prices down so much that some middle-class neighborhoods have turned into lower-income areas within months. [More]
Gasoline prices erode spending, incomes
By Lucia Mutikani
May 27, 2011
(Reuters) - The economy remained sluggish early in the second quarter as high gasoline prices crimped consumer spending and bad weather helped push pending home sales to a seven-month low in April.
Consumer spending increased 0.4 percent for a 10th straight month of gains, the Commerce Department said on Friday, after rising 0.5 percent in March.
But prices rose 0.3 percent, leaving spending up just 0.1 percent and incomes stagnant when adjusted for inflation.
Tornadoes and floods, which lashed parts of the country last month, were blamed in part for an 11.6 percent plunge in contracts to buy previously owned homes last month.
"We see the soft patch of the first quarter bleeding, at least, into the first half of the second quarter," said Robert Dye, senior economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.
"We will see again a consumer that can keep pace with the economy, but cannot drive the economy forward."
Recent data including retail sales and industrial output have been soft, prompting economists to lower their growth forecasts for the second quarter. Further cuts are likely next week should May auto sales come in very weak. [Reuters for more]
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