Even before Benghazi, the IRS and the Department of Justice controversies started heating up, the economy had consistently taken a back seat to issues such as immigration and gun control.

“The economy is by far the most important issue for voters,” says Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s not unusual for Washington preoccupations to be different than those of the public.”

She says that the public is skeptical that Washington can provide economic answers at this point. Politicians themselves seem a little dubious.

— Whatever Happened To The Economy?

The population explosion in Williston, N.D., has been a blessing and a curse for many businesses.

via The Downsides Of Living In An Oil Boom Town

Photo: Meg Luther Lindholm for NPR

theatlantic:

America’s Housing Trap: How Young Homeowners Lost Out by Buying

Last week, the real estate researchers at Zillow released their report on underwater homeowners — those who owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth — for the second quarter of 2012. They estimate that 48 percent of mortgage borrowers younger than 40 are currently underwater. It’s 39 percent among those who are 20-24 years old; 48 percent for the 25-29 cohort; and 51 percent for the 30-34 demographic. Overall, they’re more likely to be underwater than middle aged and elderly owners, a result of the fact that many Millennials were buying at the peak of the housing boom.

Read more. [Image: Zillow]

nprradiopictures:

If it was just me, I would have [given] up a long time ago. - Tracy Boggs, single mother of two in Reading, Pa.

Tens of millions of Americans are still struggling, despite the slow economic recovery. NPR’s Pam Fessler begins a four-part series on All Things Considered looking at poverty in the US and how some organizations are helping families stay afloat.

tballardbrown:

In sworn court testimony, she described watching loan officers comb through heavily African American areas such as Baltimore and Prince George’s County, forging relationships with churches and community groups to sell their members shoddy mortgages. She says she processed loans for homeowners with sterling credit ratings with higher interest rates than they needed to pay. And she says she pumped out millions of dollars in mortgages to people with no paperwork and low incomes, becoming Wells Fargo’s top-producing loan officer.

(via Ex-loan officer claims Wells Fargo targeted black communities for shoddy loans - The Washington Post)

Photo: Michael Williamson / Washington Post

(via What America Spends On Groceries : Planet Money)

planetmoney:

An awful recovery just entered its fourth year. This is what the current picture looks like. 

African-Americans have decided to move to the South in recent years. The 2010 Census was the first one in decades that showed more blacks living in the South than in the North. For most of the 20th century, blacks migrated out of the South en masse, finding new jobs and new lives in places like Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago.

Now, the Great Migration has reversed. In the first decade of the 21st century, 75 percent of African-American population growth occurred south of the Mason-Dixon Line, the highest that number has been in decades. Meanwhile, states such as Michigan and Illinois saw absolute declines in their black populations.

— The New Black South, Governing.com

The average American will never work for Google or Apple. But the rise of the high tech sector matters to all of us, including those who work outside high tech. One important reason is that attracting an Internet company or a biotech company to a city results in significant job gains for workers in the local service sector – occupations like waiters, carpenters, doctors and teachers. I call this the multiplier effect. This multiplier effect is surprisingly large. My research shows that for each new high tech job in a city, five additional jobs are created outside high tech in that city. In essence, from the point of view of a city, a high-tech job is much more than a job.

— Good Jobs: Why Innovation, Location And Education Matter Most - Forbes (via tballardbrown)

NPR is looking for people who have given up an exhaustive job search out of frustration over their poor prospects. We’re interested in learning what it would take for you to re-start your search. If you are willing to be interviewed, please email us and include your telephone number: nprcrowdsource at gmail dot com