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Recession Briefing: Can’t Drive 55

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Just what Americans need as they try to dig out from the Great Recession: gas prices headed back toward $3 per gallon. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline hit $2.70 on Thursday, according to the auto club AAA. That’s up 67 percent from this time last year. (Washington Post)

The decimated housing market may get considerably worse before it gets better, according to housing-industry professionals, who expect foreclosures and home-price declines to continue pressuring the sector through at least the first half of 2010. (Time)

Apartment vacancies hit a 30-year high in the fourth quarter, and rents fell as landlords scrambled to retain existing tenants and attract new ones. The vacancy rate ended the year at 8%, the highest level since Reis Inc., a New York research firm that tracks vacancies and rents in the top 79 U.S. markets, began its tally in 1980. (Wall Street Journal)

Barring dramatic changes in economic policy, “We’re going to have high unemployment for the next few years,” says former Labor secretary Robert Reich, now professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley. “Even when the jobs come back, they’re not going to be very good jobs.” (USA Today)

Some economists predict it will be years, not months, before employees regain any semblance of bargaining power. That’s because this recession’s unusual ferocity has accelerated trends that already had been eroding workers’ economic standing. (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

Hotel foreclosures in California more than quadrupled last year as business travelers and vacationers cut spending and commercial real estate values plunged, forcing owners into default, according to a survey released today. (Bloomberg)

Being unemployed, encountering a market decline, and spending down from retirement accounts is a worst-case outcome for your retirement plan. Depending on how long your unemployment endures, a lifetime of savings can be quickly depleted, writes Steve Utkus.  (Vanguard Blog)

U.S. job losses were higher than expected in December of last year and the unemployment rate remained at a lofty 10%, a sign the labor market has still some way to recover. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 85,000 last month, compared with a revised 4,000 gain in November. (Wall Street Journal)

“I’m not terribly worried that Congress will reduce the deficit too quickly; too much of the budget is on automatic pilot or effectively off-limits,” writes economist Bruce Bartlett. “It’s far more likely that Congress will appropriate new stimulus measures than cut back on those already enacted.” (Forbes)

Simon Johnson, the MIT professor and economist who’s long been a strident critic of “too big to fail” institutions, has predicted that the next phase of the financial crisis could be precipitated by banks exploiting emerging markets like China. (Huffington Post)

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Tags: banks, deficit, employees, employers, housing, jobs, renters, stimulus