This report highlights programs in 14 communities that are successfully addressing the challenge of providing disadvantaged young adults with the technical and postsecondary education that may qualify them for skilled positions. More...

The stocks of publicly traded companies dropped sharply in October, after reaching 2009 highs —and the companies doing much of their business in rural America saw their shares fall the most.

Rural companies and products are particularly unsettled now, even as the latest economic reports show a national economy that grew in the third quarter of 2009.More…

Stimulus Spending by State - August 6, 2009

How some of the major spending in the stimulus legislation will be shared among the states. View the accompanying map to see spending by social (education, housing and urban development, health, crime fighting, job training, arts, food and farming, social security, and americorps) and infrastructure, (transportation, water, energy, military, veterans, government, outdoors, emergency shelters). More...

The government’s “cash for clunkers” program jump-started personal spending in August as car buyers took advantage of taxpayer-financed rebates, the government reported on Thursday.

The 1.3 percent spike in spending was the largest in nearly eight years, but economists said it was not the foundation for any long-term rebound in the consumer sector. The government’s $3 billion clunkers program has ended, and automakers are bracing for a drop in September sales from a month earlier.More…

G.D.P. Shrank Less Than Expected in Quarter - September 30, 2009

The American economy performed better than expected this spring, contracting at its slowest pace in a year, the government reported on Wednesday. The report offered more evidence that the recession probably ended this summer, and that the economy would now grow through the end of the year.

The Commerce Department reported that the gross domestic product — a billboard number that tallies the country’s economic output — shrank by an annual rate of 0.7 percent from April through June, a revision from earlier estimates of a 1 percent contraction. More…

Once a year the folks at the Economic Research Service publish a report on rural America. It’s called Rural America at a Glance and this year’s edition focuses on the recession. No surprise there. Friday we learned that the recession has “plunged 2.6 million more Americans into poverty, wiped out the household income gains of an entire decade and pushed the number of people without health insurance up to 46.3 million,” according to the Washington Post. More...