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Recession Briefing: Obama Proposes Big Limits on Banks

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

President Obama expanded his new offensive on Wall Street on Thursday, proposing rules that would impede the growth of the largest banks and bar them from making what he called “reckless” investments. (Washington Post)

As a result of the recession, the U.S. Census Bureau finds itself with the most highly skilled, highly educated work force in its 220-year history. Nationwide, the bureau already has recruited engineers, former corporate vice presidents, college professors and radio disc jockeys to help manage the 2010 census, which will attempt to count everyone in the country beginning in March. (Coloradoan)

“Britain has eaten, drunk and smoked its way out of the recession” according to a new report on manufacturing production. (The Times of London)

“The problem in the job market going forward is not so much layoffs in the private sector, which are abating, but a lack of hiring,” writes Mort Zuckerman. “Economists may see the recession as being over, but the man on the street does not.” (Wall Street Journal)

U.S. productivity grew 2.5 percent (in per hour terms) in 2009, The Conference Board reports. This was largely explained by dramatically reduced working hours that offset output decline — employment fell by 3.6 percent in 2009; hours worked per worker by 1.5 percent. (Press Release)

The Democrats’ loss of a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate throws hurdles onto an already rocky path toward a new stimulus bill aimed at saving jobs. (CNN/Money)

Saying that last year’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan has failed to ease urban unemployment, the nation’s mayors are asking the federal government for a second wave of stimulus money. (New York Times)

The poverty rate in American suburbs increased 25 percent between 2000 and 2008 — and is growing significantly faster than the national average and urban rate. The Brookings Institution ranked metropolitan areas by the increase over the last decade in their share of suburban poor. Here are some of the areas hardest hit. (Huffington Post)

Last month marked the first time since the recession began two years ago that New York City’s unemployment rate was significantly higher than that of the United States as a whole. James Brown, a Labor Department analyst, said one bright spot in the data was an apparent turnaround on Wall Street. (New York Times/Dealbook)

In testimony yesterday, Connecticut’s Children in the Recession Legislative Task Force recommended that the federal government increase support for low-income meals in schools, improve COBRA health insurance assistance, and expand affordable housing programs to keep children from slipping into poverty. (Hartford Courant)

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Tags: jobs, layoffs, obama, politics, The Unemployed Life, Wall Street