CNN news 2011-02-05
Well, one government agency is predicting that the U.S. will have a deficit in 2011. A big deficit. In a report that came out yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO forecast that the U.S. government will spend $1.5 trillion more than it makes this year. The CBO says one reason for that deficit is the deal that Democrats and Republicans passed late last year to extend a set of tax cuts. Another reason for the prediction: the country's slow economic recovery.
One part of the economy that has made a bit of a comeback is the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which offers an idea of how the whole stock market is doing, finished yesterday just below 12,000 points. It hasn't been that high in two-and-a-half years.
The stock market is one kind of economic indicator. The unemployment rate is another. It includes people who are out of work, but who are still looking for work. What it doesn't take into account is folks who are underemployed. They have jobs, but these jobs aren't full-time, or they're not jobs that take advantage of all the workers' abilities. Mary Snow introduces us to one underemployed American and his efforts to find work.