Ticket sales were down this year. But was this due to a bad economic climate? Or, were the movies in 2011 just awful? Takeaway Movie Date podcasters Rafer Guzman and Kristen Meinzer take a look into the abyss of terrible movies. From "Margin Call" to "The Smurfs" and "Tree of Life" — did these movies take down the entire industry? It was probably just a coincedence. 

Since 2007, the number of people collecting social security disability benefits, or SSDI, has grown by 3.4 million. Two new studies, one co-produced by the Obama administration, document a direct relationship between those seeking SSDI after their unemployment benefits run out. With 10.6 million Americans receiving payments of roughly $1,000 a month plus access to Medicare and Medicaid, there are concerns that the Social Security Trust Fund will be completely depleted by 2017.

The economic downturn that has destroyed lives and businesses throughout the country has managed to avoid Capitol Hill. According to an analysis from The Washington Post, members of Congress have become much wealthier as many Americans have seen their finances shrink. The median net worth of a member of Congress is now $913,000 and climbing. Peter Whoriskey of The Washington Post discusses the growing economic gap between lawmakers and their constituents.

After four years of economic downturns, there's finally some good news: in the past 3 months, 650,000 workers aged 16 to 24 have found jobs. This age group, dubbed by some as "the lost generation," have been hit hardest by these ongoing problems: in 2010, only 16.9 million of them were employed.

The American Southwest has seen their once thriving housing and construction industries decimated by the recession. Economists have suggested that the region may never fully rebound from the historic housing crisis it faced. Fronteras, a multimedia collaboration focusing on the Southwestern border between the United States and Mexico, led by KJZZ in Phoenix and KPBS in San Diego, has produced a week-long series that asks the question: How do we rebuild the Southwest?

Most economists agree that the recession ended in the summer of 2009. But, because of persistently high unemployment, many Americans are still feeling the economic pain. Across the country, there are almost five percent fewer jobs than there were when the recession began. And, according to a recent Gallup poll, Americans are now more pessimistic about the job market than at any time in the past 10 years. About 90 percent of Americans currently say that it is a "bad time" to find a quality job. 

The latest Census data reports that nearly 46.2 million Americans, about 1 in 15, are living in poverty. According to a new Pew poll, the face of American poverty has shifted dramatically. For the first time in U.S. history, the percent of Hispanics living in poverty outpaces African Americans with 28.2 percent of Latinos under the poverty line compared to 25.4 percent of blacks. In fact, Latinos overall were hit the hardest by the Great Recession which technically ended in 2009.

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office says that the country's wealth gap continues to grow, with the richest 1 percent's income larger than ever. The richest of the rich have seen their income nearly triple since 1980. But Americans appear to be getting fed up. After growing up in a society that took steady but stable income growth as a given, a New York Times/CBS News poll shows that two-thirds of Americans feel wealth should be more evenly distributed and that millionaires should be taxed more. 

Economist Jeffrey Sachs has a new book, "The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity," and the heart of it is a single argument: all of the nation’s current economic, political and productive woes share a similar root cause: that America’s financial and political leaders are failing to take the moral steps necessary to restrain a society of markets, and policies run amok, and that we need to become a "mindful society."

On Thursday, President Obama spoke at a press conference from the White House on his jobs proposal, calling it "an insurance policy against a possible double-dip recession." Obama hopes to fund the plan via a plan pitched by Senate Democrats this week, to tax Americans with incomes above one million dollars per year. Senate Leader Harry Reid plans to bring the jobs bill to the Senate floor next week.

In testimony before a Congressional committee on Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned lawmakers that the economic recovery U.S. "is close to faltering." Bernanke said the central bank was prepared to do more to bolster the economy, but that Congress needed to do more to encourage growth. In June, Bernanke had said, "growth seems likely to pick up in the second half of the year." Bernanke's grim assessment comes after the economy barely grew in the first half of the year, and there were no new jobs in August. Consumer confidence fell this summer to the lowest point since the recession.

European and Asian markets are being hammered this morning as markets react to the Federal Reserve's warning about the weak state of the U.S. economy, and fears of another recession in the euro zone. On Wednesday, the Fed predicted the U.S. economy was still years away from a full recovery, and announced it would buy long-term Treasury bonds and sell short-term bonds to stimulate lending. Andrew Walker, economics correspondent for the BBC, has the latest.

As we've watched the economic crisis unfold in Greece this year, and Greek citizens taking to the streets to protest the financial situation there, we've wondered why the same thing hasn't happened in America. Why haven’t we heard more outrage from the increasingly squeezed American people?

Most Americans are aware that the U.S. economy is in trouble and job numbers are stagnant, but could things be even worse than they seem? Some key economists are now saying the chances the economy will slip into a double dip recession are as high as 50 percent. Are Wall Street and the White House facing facts?

It doesn't take a scientist to conclude that going through the foreclosure process is stressful. Even the threat of being foreclosed on can make one's blood pressure rise. But science can show the very real effects that these tough economic times are having on America's health. A new study links the rise in foreclosures to more hospital visits related to diabetes and hypertension. More specifically, for every 100 foreclosures there was a 7.2 percent rise in emergency room visits, an 8.1 percent increase in diabetes cases for people aged 20 to 49, and 12 percent more hospital visits related to anxiety in the same age category.

The latest consumer confidence numbers are due out later today and — given the roller coaster week the stock market has endured, and the Congress's recent debt ceiling decision — they aren't expected to be great. In such tumultuous times, it’s difficult for anyone to maintain confidence in the economy. But confidence is just what some experts say is necessary to create jobs and keep the markets stable. So, how do we inspire it?

The stock market in the United States is expected to have another weak opening this morning, following yesterday's violent sell off on Wall Street and around the globe. Investors pulled their money from stocks and flocked toward Treasury bonds and precious metals like gold, which has risen to $1,669.10 an ounce. The European debt crisis and slow economic growth in the U.S. are leading to fears of a "double-dip" recession. Markets in Japan, Australia, South Korea, and Hong Kong all closed down around 4 percent. A jobs report from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics in Washington is expected to show unemployment continues to hover around 9.2 percent, a figure that has the potential to drive the economy lower. 

The stock market opened higher than expected this morning, as markets reacted to the strongest jobs report since April. A report from the Labor Department showing that the economy added 117,000 jobs in July, bringing the unemployment rate down to 9.1 percent is buffering the U.S. stock market so far against the sharp sell offs around the globe yesterday. Yesterday was the worst day on Wall Street in three years.

Does unemployment affect males and females differently? The economic downturn has been called a "mancession." Are we now in the midst of a "he-covery?" According to the Pew Research Center, men lost more than twice as many jobs than women during the Great Recession, but the recovery has reversed that trend. Between June 2009 and May 2011, men gained jobs while women continued to lose them. What accounts for the unemployment gender gap, and will the trend continue?

"We do not believe there is a threat there of a double-dip recession. We believe that economy will continue to grow," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said yesterday. But some economic indicators are painting a different picture. While the private sector added 114,000 jobs in July, layoffs in the U.S. reached a 16-month high. Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture says the more Americans are receiving food stamps than ever before. The Pew Research Center released a study last month finding that women are having more difficulty than men re-entering the work force. All of this news comes on top of the figures released by the Commerce Department last Friday showing that the economy has only grown by a dismal 1.3 percent.