American Morning
Building Up America: Austin thriving in tough times
Austin, Texas is booming. People there say the way they do business could be a blueprint for your hometown.
In today's "Building Up America" report, our Tom Foreman takes a look at a city where many people are saying, "what recession?"
Broken Government: Middle class fed up?
Editor's Note: All this week in our special series "Broken Government," CNN is taking a hard look at our nation's government; the frustrating problems and the potential solutions. Today, our Carol Costello reports on the growing struggles of the American middle class. Tomorrow on American Morning, we look at why banks still aren't loaning and what the answer is for small businesses.
By Bob Ruff and Carol Costello
What does it take to be part of the American middle class?
Here’s the tried and true way: Get an education, work hard, get a good paying job with benefits, raise a family, buy a house and a car or two and take a vacation once a year.
Put it all together and you’re describing not just the dream, but the fulfillment of that dream by tens of millions of Americans during the last century. But that was then, before the hard economic times following 9/11, and this is now.
Meet the Bindners of Alexandria, Virginia.
“I think the middle class,” says Moira Bindner, “is trying to get a handle on where their feet are because it feels like the rug has been totally pulled out, and it’s really challenging on a day to day basis to accomplish everything with the paycheck coming in the door.”
For example: “You don’t go to the dentist, you don’t get your car repaired until it’s desperate...the retirement plan went out the window and our credit card debt went up,” says Moira.
Jobless rate falls more than expected
There is a little bit of good news today. The Labor Department released its January jobs report, saying the unemployment rate dropped to 9.7%.
To break down the numbers, we were joined on Friday's American Morning by Lackshman Achuthan, economic analyst and managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute; and Jill Schlesinger, editor at large at CBS Moneywatch.com.
CNNMoney: Job losses continue but rate falls
Pension gaps plague cities and states
By Carol Costello and Bob Ruff
We caught up with New York City Sanitation worker Chris Becker along his route in downtown Manhattan. It was 10 a.m. and Becker had been hard at work hauling the city’s garbage into his truck for four hours already.
Why did he take a job that defines backbreaking work?
“I didn’t come on the job straight out of school,” he told us. “I came on the job when I was 26-years-old. I saw all the big corporate mergers and people buying up companies and, you know, I got a little nervous, so I went for security. I took a couple of tests and sanitation was the first one that called me. I took it.”
A big part of that security for Becker is the Sanitation Worker’s Pension Plan. It allows him to retire after 20 years on the job, with full benefits, so long as he keeps contributing almost 10% of his salary to the plan. Now 37, Becker can retire at 46 and immediately start receiving his pension roughly equal to half his salary every year for the rest of his life.
Obama budget boosts spending for jobs, education
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/01/budget.gi.art.jpg caption="President Obama today announced a $3.8 trillion budget proposal that includes $50 billion to create jobs and a more than 6 percent increase in education funding."]
By Jennifer Liberto, senior writer
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) - President Obama revealed a $3.8 trillion budget for 2011 on Monday that tries to balance two competing goals: continued government spending to boost the fragile economic recovery and controlling the nation's deficit.
"We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences, as if waste doesn't matter," Obama said at a White House presentation. "It's time to save what we can, spend what we must and live within our means once again."
The budget assumes that the nation's unemployment rate will average 9.2% in 2011 and that the nation's gross domestic product grows by 3.8% next year. It also assumes that some sort of health care reform legislation will pass.
Included in the massive package are $53 billion in tax cuts and $50 billion job-creating measures, including small-business tax cuts, as well as new investments in green technology and infrastructure programs for work on roads and bridges.
Clooney film stars real people who lost jobs
Actor George Clooney is getting plenty of Oscar buzz for his role as a downsizing consultant in the new movie "Up in the Air."
The film tackles an issue millions of Americans are very familiar with right now – unemployment. Movie-goers may not realize it, but many of the laid-off workers in the film aren't actors, they're real people who lost real jobs.
Kevin Pilla, Arthur Hill and Marlene Gorkiewicz all appeared in "Up in the Air," and they joined us on Monday's American Morning.
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