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The 2008 global economic crisis has been the most severe recession since the Great Depression. Notwithstanding its dramatic effects, cross-country analyses on its heterogeneous impacts and its potential causes are still scarce. By analysing the geography of the 2008 crisis, policy-relevant lessons can be learned on how cities and regions react to economic shocks in order to design adequate responses.

The post Austerity and the slow recovery of European city-regions appeared first on OUPblog.

Every Wednesday, I talk about comics with Brandon Montclare, writer of the hit Image series Rocket Girl and co-writer of Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur series. We gab about what we’re reading now, what books we consider classics (Brandon loves Dark Knight Strikes Again…), and the hottest gossip of the industry.  Occasionally, the inimitable artist Amy Reeder (Rocket Girl, Batwoman) stops by.  Check out our full […]

Seven years ago this month the federal funds rate—a key short-term interest rate set by the Federal Reserve—was lowered below 0.25%. It has remained there ever since.Lowering the fed funds rate to rock-bottom levels did not come as a surprise. The sub-prime mortgage crisis led to a severe economic contraction, the Great Recession, and Federal Reserve policy makers used low interest rates—among other tools—in an effort to revive the economy.

The post Birdwatching at the Federal Reserve appeared first on OUPblog.

As we approach the annual St Patrick’s Day celebration, the story of the Irish economy in the last five years is worthy of reflection. In late 2010, the Irish Government, following in the footsteps of Greece, was forced to request a deeply humiliating emergency financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU). Against the background of the recent controversy over the latest “Greek crisis”, what can be said about Ireland’s experience? Here are five relevant issues

The post Ireland is on the way back appeared first on OUPblog.

A news release on 6 February 2015 from the Federal Reserve Board, together with a selection of dense numerical tables, showed once again that consumer credit in use has increased over the course of a year. This is the fourth year in a row and the 67th yearly increase in the 69 years since 1945. But does this mean that credit growth is a meaningful worry? Total consumer sector income and total assets have also increased in 67 of the 69 years since World War II.

The post Is consumer credit growth worth worrying about? appeared first on OUPblog.

By Jean Pisani-Ferry

At the end of May, 400 million EU citizens will be called to participate in the second-largest direct election in the world (the first being held in India). Since they last went to the polls to elect their parliament, in 2009, Europe has gone through an acute crisis that precipitated several countries deeper into recession than any peacetime shock they had suffered for a century. In several of the continent’s regions, more than a fourth of the labour force is unemployed. Over the last five years, the crisis has exposed many weaknesses in the design of the euro area and there has been no shortage of heated policy debates about the nature of the systemic reforms that were required. In the same vein, both the European Central Bank’s response and the pace of fiscal consolidation have been matters for ongoing controversies.

Against this background, one could expect political parties to offer clearly defined alternative choices for the future of Europe and citizens to participate to the elections en masse – even more so because the next parliament will have a say in the selection of the coming European Commission, the EU’s executive body. Expectations, however, are uniformly grim. Last time the election was held, turnout was 43% only. It is anticipated that it will be low again and that fringe national parties will be significant winners in the election. Throughout Europe, mainstream politicians are preparing for a setback. Some foresee a disaster.

There are three reasons for this paradox. First, citizens do not grasp what the European parliament is about. It is, in fact, an active and thorough legislator. Over the last five years, it has for example been an energetic player in the elaboration of a regulatory response to the global financial crisis and a staunch protector of European consumer. Recently it has played a major role in the creation of a banking union in the EU. But it is rarely the place where the debates that define the political agenda and capture the citizens’ attention are held.

Second, dividing lines within parliament are often national rather than political. On industrial policy, trade and regulation, as well as far as relationships with neighbours are concerned, which country you belong to matters as much as which camp you are from. Consequently, issues are often settled with a compromise that blurs the separation between left and right. As in addition virtually all the media are national and generally pitch the debate as opposing the national capital and ‘Brussels’ or another capital, voters have no perception of the sometimes very real differences between left and right.

Third, the fundamental European debate is of a constitutional nature and for this reason it cannot be settled by the parliament. This is true of the key issues that arose during the euro crisis: whether to rescue countries in trouble, whether to mutualise public debt, whether to change the decision rule for sanctions against excessive budget deficits, whether to go for a banking union. Each time the big question was, what do Germany, France and other Eurozone countries think? It was not what does the European parliament think, because almost by definition the parliament has always been in favour of more Europe.

These three obstacles to a pan-European political debate explain why fringe anti-EU parties like the UK Independence Party (UKIP), or the French National Front generally do well in the European parliament elections. Their simple message is that European integration is the wrong way to go and that national governments should repatriate powers from Brussels. As the scope for disagreement between the two main centre-right and centre-left parties is much narrower than the range of views amongst voters, voters who have sympathy for the anti-EU know why and for whom they should vote while those who are in favour of European integration do not have many reasons to vote, because the mainstream parties’ platforms are largely interchangeable.

To overcome the obstacle, a recent reform has stipulated that when appointing the European Commission’s president, the heads of state and government should take into account the result of the elections to the European parliament. In principle therefore, the next European Commission president will belong to the party holding the (relative) majority in the European parliament. Furthermore, the main parties have already nominated their candidates to the European Commission. This politicisation is meant to flag to the citizens that their vote matters and will result in determining the roadmap for the next five years. Unfortunately however, it is not clear whether mainstream parties will be able to formulate policy platforms that are defined enough to attract voters.

Does it matter? After all Europe’s situation is not unique. In the US participation rates in the mid-term elections (when the presidency is not in the ballot) are generally well below 50%. They are also rather low in other federations like India or Switzerland. As Tip O’Neill, the former speaker of the US House, used to say, “all politics is local” and this affects the voters’ behaviour. Europe, in a way, is awkward, but normal: the EU does the legislation, but politics is national.

This is however a too complacent reading of the reality. At a time when countries participating in the euro are confronted with major choices, the risk for Europe is to emerge from the elections with a weak legitimacy (because of the turnout) and a politically distorted parliament (because of the strong showing of the fringe parties). This would make governments wary of bold choices and could result in an unhealthy stalemate. It is not yet time for the EU to become boringly normal.

Jean Pisani-Ferry currently serves as the Commissioner-General for Policy Planning to the Prime Minister of France. He is also Professor of Economics and Public Management at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Until May 2013 he was the director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank he contributed to founding in 2005. He is the author of The Euro Crisis and Its Aftermath.

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Image credit: The European Parliament, Brussels. Photo by Alina Zienowicz. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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By Andrew Staniforth

Within moments of the terrorist attacks in London on the morning of 7 July 2005, news of the unfolding crisis on public transport had reached traders in the City. The London Stock Exchange index, the FTSE 100, lost 3.5% of its total value within just 90 minutes of the trading session that day as a direct result of the bombings – equivalent to a total de-capitalisation of around £44,000,000,000. This immediate economic impact is staggering in and of itself, especially when you consider it only cost the British home-grown Al Qaeda terrorist cell £1,000 to finance their attack.

In the immediate aftermath of the 7/7 coordinated bombings, financial investors concentrated their sales orders on shares related to the tourist sector, fearful of travellers opting to cancel their stay in London. However, and even though the large airlines and tour operators, such as Lufthansa, gave their customers the option of cancelling or postponing their trips to London, there was no significant number of cancellations. The London Stock Exchange recovered its losses very quickly and by the close of trading on 7 July they had been restored. This was a remarkable achievement, serving to limit the potential impact of the home-made bombs that were detonated earlier that day.

Paternoster Square, home of the London Stock Exchange

The swift recovery from the potential economic losses during 7/7 had been pre-planned; the terrorist response in the City of London had not been left to chance. There were three important factors that were instrumental in restoring trading confidence in London so swiftly. The first was the British Government’s suggestion to the London Stock Exchange to suspend electronic trading in order to avoid a ‘deluge of orders’. This immediate counter-measure undoubtedly contributed to reducing losses, although the stock exchange operators had to face the almost impossible task of processing all orders by telephone.

The second factor which proved essential in restoring trading confidence in London was directly related to the impact of the attacks on the London’s infrastructure which was considered slight when compared to the catastrophic terrorist attacks in the United States of 9/11. In New York, many of the companies in the World Trade Center sustained huge losses, personal and financial. Canto Fitzgerald, whose footprint spanned the 101st to the 105th floor of the North Tower, lost 658 employees in the attack. The impact of losing such an influential trader and investor alongside others such as Morgan Stanley, the Atlantic Bank of New York, Bank of America, Fuji Bank, Lehman Brothers and Ashai Bank in New York itself, who represented just some of the financial institutions operating in the Twin Towers, served to exasperate the economic repercussions of Al Qaeda’s attack. The impact upon the New York Stock Market was devastating. Altogether, the United States Stock Market posted losses in terms of de-capitalisation of the Dow Jones Industrial and NASDAQ of $1.7 billion.

The third factor which proved instrumental in restoring trading confidence in London was that in the wake of 9/11, most financial institutions headquartered in London had developed ‘emergency evacuation plans’ which would enable them to transfer their business within a very short time-frame from central City of London locations to premises outside the urban area. These crisis contingencies provided confidence to investors and traders of business continuity; it appeared that the learning from 9/11 by government and financial security experts had served to minimise the economic impact of 7/7.

The economic repercussions of terrorist attacks reveals the short, medium, and long term consequences of terrorism. The sheer size, scale and scope of the economic impact of terrorism provides evidence to support the notion that terrorism in itself needs to be distinguished from other types of criminality, as it reaches far beyond the human, social and economic impact of other crimes. First and foremost terrorism is a crime, a crime which has serious consequences and one which requires to be distinguished from other types of crime, but a crime nonetheless. Terrorism seeks to undermine state legitimacy, freedom and democracy, the very fabric of our collective community values in Britain. These are a very different set of motivations and outcomes when compared against other types of crime. This is the reason why tackling terrorism is different to countering other types of criminality and why it requires a dedicated and determined approach to prevent it.

As the UK begins to observe the green shoots of economic recovery, we can be thankful to those in authority who quietly and patiently counter the threat to keep our communities and economic interests safe. A major terrorist event specifically targeted towards creating economic instability in the UK committed during the recent period of our financial vulnerability could have had a substantial impact – a catastrophic attack from which we may not have recovered so quickly with far-reaching economic repercussions. That being said, all in authority are required to note that the threat from terrorism remains substantial and complacency based upon the absence of a major terrorist attack remains misplaced and unwise.

Andrew Staniforth is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC). He is the author of Preventing Terrorism and Violent Extremism, part of the Blackstone’s Practical Policing series.

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Image credit: Paternoster Square, London. By konstantin32, via iStockphoto.

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How do we address the problem of inequality in capitalist societies? Tom Malleson, the author of After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century, argues that by making sure that democracy exists in both our economy and in our government, we may be able to achieve meaningful equality throughout society. We recently spoke to him about how economic democracy works and how viable it can be.

To start, give us a bare-bones description of what economic democracy is.

Economic democracy is the idea that democracy belongs not just in politics, but in the economy as well. There’s a paradox at the very center of our society: we call ourselves a democracy and yet a central part of society, the economy, has very little democracy in it at all. Workers do not elect the managers of their firms. Bankers do not allocate finance with any accountability to their communities. Investment decisions are not made with any citizen participation. That’s the philosophical paradox that After Occupy investigates. There are real, concrete examples of democratic alternatives in the economy out there, such as worker cooperatives in Spain and Italy, public banks in India, participatory budgeting in Brazil, capital controls in Malaysia, and so on. Ultimately, these alternative practices might be woven together to constitute a fundamentally different kind of society – a truly democratic one.

What exactly is a worker cooperative?

Worker co-ops are businesses that are owned and controlled entirely by the workers themselves. Workers elect the management on a one-person one-vote basis, just like we elect politicians into government. Probably the most famous co-op in the world is Mondragon in Spain. It started in 1956 with only five workers, and today employs over 80,000 people, with assets of over €35 billion. In addition to being far more democratic than conventional corporations, co-ops have two other important advantages. First, they have far less inequality of wages. In the United States, the average CEO makes 300 times the average employee of his or her company. For co-ops the ratio rarely exceeds 3:1. If co-ops spread, society as a whole would become significantly more equal too. In addition, co-ops also have far better job security. Instead of simply firing people in a recession, co-ops act in a much more humane way, usually by collectively agreeing to reduce their hours or take a pay cut across the board, instead of laying people off. That’s why in this last recession Mondragon has fired far fewer people than other Spanish firms. So if we had more co-ops here in the United States, the recession would have been far less devastating.

Are co-ops economically viable?

Absolutely. Economists have now been studying co-ops for over 30 years, and the conclusion is that worker co-ops operate with similar levels of efficiency to conventional firms. These results have been found again and again, in the United States, Uruguay, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. Perhaps the most compelling evidence of viability is Northern Italy, where co-ops are more prevalent than in any other part of the world. In Emilia Romagna, for instance, they represent a substantial 12% of the region’s GDP, many co-ops have been around for decades, and the co-op sector dominates in a number of industries including construction, wine making, and food processing.

In After Occupy you argue that the current system of investment is undemocratic. What exactly do you mean?

The investment decisions that are made today — building highways or high-speed trains, condos or social housing, tar sands or green businesses — fundamentally determine the kind of society we will end up with tomorrow. Investment determines our future, which is why it must be accountable to us, the public. How could this happen? One important example is participatory budgeting, where local neighborhoods get to decide themselves on the kind of public infrastructure spending they want to see. In terms of finance, bank regulation is an obviously important first step. But over the long term, what is needed is a public banking system so that finances are allocated according to public need, not just according to private profit. Just like we have an electricity system and a post office that serves public needs, we need finance to do so as well (so that banks invest in poor communities or into green businesses – things that private banks will never do). At the end of the day, finance is simply too important for our future to be left to the banks.

Is having a true economic democracy feasible or is it simply a utopian?

Every proposal that is made in this book is based on real concrete examples. Worker co-ops already exist, as do public banks, participatory budgeting, etc. So we know there is absolutely nothing impossible about any of them – the institutions work. The difficult part, of course, is expanding them and bringing successful examples over from other countries. Some reforms (such as regulating the banks), are possible in the short-term; others, like building a large co-op movement, are the project of a generation. But the fact that we can see real-world examples of these things means that they are not at all utopian. With sufficient political will, a democratic economy is entirely within our reach.

Tom Malleson is the author of After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century and is an Assistant Professor in the Social Justice and Peace Studies program at King’s University College at Western University, Canada. He is the co-editor of Whose Streets? The Toronto G20 and the Challenges of Summit Protest and the author of Stand Up Against Capitalism (forthcoming).

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The post A conversation on economic democracy with Tom Malleson appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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By William Chislett

The good news is that Spain has finally come out of a five-year recession that was triggered by the bursting of its property bubble. The bad news is that the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at a whopping 26%, double the European Union average.

The scale of the property madness was such that in 2006 the number of housing starts (762,214) was more than that of Germany, France, and Italy combined. This sector, to borrow the title of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez, was a Chronicle of a Death Foretold. There are still an estimated more than one million new and second hand unsold homes.

The excessive concentration on the property sector, as the motor of an economy that boomed for a decade, created a lopsided economic model and fertile ground for corruption. When the sector crashed as of 2008 and house prices plummeted, 1.7 million people lost their jobs in construction out of a total of 3.7 million job losses in the last six years, households were left with mortgages they could not pay and property development companies unable to service their bank loans. This, in turn, severely weakened parts of the banking system which had to be rescued by the European Stability Mechanism with a €42 billion bailout programme. Spain exited the bail-out in January, but bad loans still account for more than 13% of total credit, up from a mere 0.7% in 2006.

Spain has emerged from recession thanks largely to an impressive export performance, achieved through an “internal devaluation” (lower unit labour costs stemming from wage cuts or a wage freeze and higher productivity). As a euro country, Spain cannot devalue. Merchandise exports rose from €160 billion in 2009 to €234 billion in 2013, an increase equivalent to more than 7% of GDP. This growth has been faster than the pace of powerhouse Germany, albeit from a smaller base. Exports of goods and services rose from 27% of GDP in 2007 to around 35% last year. The surge in exports combined with the drop in imports and a record year for tourism, with 60 million visitors, turned around the current account, which was in surplus for the first time in 27 years. In 2007, the current account recorded a deficit of 10%, the highest in relative terms among developed countries.

Unemployment is the most pressing problem. The depth of the jobs’ crisis is such that Spain, which represents 11% of the euro zone’s economy and has a population of 47 million, has almost 6 million unemployed (around one-third of the zone’s total jobless), whereas Germany (population 82 million and 30% of the GDP) has only 2.8 million jobless (15% of the zone’s total). Germany’s jobless rate is at its lowest since the country’s reunification, while Spain’s is at its highest level ever.

Mariano Rajoy

Young Spanish adults, particularly the better qualified, are increasingly moving abroad in search of a job, though not in the scale suggested by the Spanish media which gives the impression there is a massive exodus and brain drain. One thing is the large flow of those who go abroad, especially to Germany, and return after a couple of months; another the permanent stock of Spaniards abroad (those who stay beyond a certain amount of time), which is surprisingly small. According to research conducted by the Elcano Royal Institute, Spain’s main think tank, between January 2009 and January 2013, the worst years of Spain’s recession, the stock of Spaniards who resided abroad increased in net terms by a mere 40,000, which is less than 0.1% of Spain’s population, to 1.9 million. These figures are based on official Spanish statistics cross-checked with data in the countries where Spaniards reside. The number of Spaniards living abroad is less than one-third the size of Spain’s foreign-born population of 6.4 million (13.2% of the total population). Immigrants in Spain are returning to their country of origin, particularly Latin Americans.

Spain’s crisis has also resulted in a long overdue crackdown on corruption. There are around 800 cases under investigation, most of them involving politicians and their business associates. Spain was ranked 40th out of 177 countries in the 2013 corruption perceptions ranking by the Berlin-based Transparency International, down from 30th place in 2012. Its score of 59 was six points lower. The nearer to 100, the cleaner the country. Spain was the second-biggest loser of points, and only topped by war-torn Syria. The country is in for a long haul.

William Chislett, the author of Spain: What Everyone Needs to Know, is a journalist who has lived in Madrid since 1986. He will be talking on his book at the Oxford Literary Festival on 29 March. He covered Spain’s transition to democracy (1975-78) for The Times of London and was later the Mexico correspondent for the Financial Times (1978-84). He writes about Spain for the Elcano Royal Institute, which has published three books of his on the country, and he has a weekly column in the online newspaper El Imparcial. He has previously written on Spanish unemployment and Gibraltar for the OUPblog.

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Image credits: (1) Spanish Falg By Iker Parriza. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons (2) Mariano Rajoy By Gilad Rom. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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luclatulippe:

This short clip from Studio 360 talks about an ongoing series by Scott Timberg at Salon.com called No Sympathy For The Creative Class which explores how artists are making 20–45% less income than before the recession.  (my bold). This echoes what I’ve been seeing and hearing from hundreds of other illustrators since 2008/2009. 

As the country has battled the Great Recession, we’ve been inundated with reports of corporate layoffs and manufacturing jobs vanishing. But there’s another group of American workers that has been particularly hard hit — the creative class.

In an ongoing series for Salon, reporter Scott Timberg writes that the last few years have seen a huge drop-off in jobs in the creative industries. He cites figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that show declines from 20 to 30 percent in photography, architecture, and graphic design since the recession began. In other fields, Timberg found, the downturn simply aggravated existing trends. “‘Theater, dance and other performing arts companies’ [are] down 21.9 percent over five years,” he writes. “Musical groups and artists plummeted by 45.3 percent between August 2002 and August of 2011.”

But the public — including the media and politicians — doesn’t have much sympathy, Timberg tells Kurt Andersen. Partly, it’s a problem of perception. Celebrity artists seem to be “doing fine … the Frank Gehrys, the Nicole Kidmans, the Drakes and so on.” Kurt suggests that since creative workplaces tend to be small, layoffs don’t generate the publicity of a large factory relocating to China. (via Recession Wanes, But Artists Still Starving - Studio 360)

At least 22 independent bookshops are currently for sale in the UK, with the recession, the climate of the bookselling market and the refusal of banks to lend money all being cited as causes for fewer properties exchanging hands.

The bookshops on sale range in price from £10,000 for a book and card shop in Preston to £175,000 for a bookshop in North Yorkshire.

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By Mariko Lin Chang

This year’s Equal Pay Day falls on April 12, marking how far into 2011 the average woman must work in order to earn what the average man had by the end of 2010. In the 15 years since Equal Pay Day was established, the gender wage gap has barely budged, moving from 74 percent in 1996 to 77 percent in 2010. This amounts to a three-cent increase in women’s wages for every dollar earned by men. Given that women make up half of the workforce, the gender wage gap does not generate the outrage that it should, as is clear from the failure of the Paycheck Fairness Act last November.

Polls confirm that most people believe women and men doing the same job should receive the same pay. But many are unaware of the extent of the problem, believe the wage gap is a result of women’s choices or think that the gap is a relic of the past. Thus, Equal Pay Day is the perfect time for some myth busting.

Myth #1: The wage gap is a result of women’s choices.

We’re less likely to think the wage gap is a problem if we believe it stems from women’s individual choices—to choose one job or field of study over another, to “opt out” of the workforce to raise children, or to fail to negotiate for higher pay. These arguments, prevalent in the media, overlook important research to the contrary. For one, men are perceived as more accomplished than women even when they have the same resumes. As for women “opting out” to become mothers, author Pamela Stone shows [PDF] that many professional women who leave their jobs to engage in full-time caregiving are not “opting out” but are “pushed out”: They are stigmatized and their attempts to stay on the career track are stymied. Correspondingly, Stanford sociologist Shelley Correll found that mothers are less likely to be hired and are offered lower salaries than fathers and women without children.

Furthermore, while it’s true that men are more likely to be working in higher-paid fields, women make less money than men even when they occupy the same jobs. Researchers at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that in the largest 108 occupations, men outearn women in all but four: (1) life, physical, and social science technicians, (2) bakers, (3) teacher assistants and (4) dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers. With respect to negotiation, researchers at Harvard and Carnegie Mellon have demonstrated that although women are less likely to negotiate, they are penalized more heavily than men when they negotiate.

Myth #2: The wage gap is a relic of the past.

Concerns about equal pay may have been mitigated by recent reports that in major cities,

On Monday, actor and poet Charlie Sheen posted a job ad seeking a paid social media intern–generating 95,333 clicks in an hour and more than 74,000 applications.

Here’s more about the job: “The #TigerBloodIntern is expected to be proactive, monitor the day-to-day activities on the major social media platforms, prepare for exciting online projects and increase Charlie’s base of followers. You will learn how to promote and develop the social media network of Hollywood’s most trending celebrity.”

What does this mean for writers? As the recession continues, book advances dwindle, and paying writing jobs fade away, these social media jobs might become bizarre careers for writers–churning out thousands of tweets and Facebook posts for famous people. Novelist Cornell Woolrich described a similar lifestyle as a Depression-era pulp fiction writer in his story “Penny-A-Worder.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Two-thirds (65%) of Americans report using their public library either in person, by telephone or via computer in the past year. That’s over 151 million people using public libraries! The 2010 Harris Poll Quorum Household Survey, available on the ALA website, reveals some interesting data about library use.

Among those who have visited the library by computer in the past year, one third (35%) report increasing their public library access by computer over the past 6 months. While taking out books remains the top service library users report as a reason to visit the library in person, patrons who use the library by phone or computer report increased renewals as well as catalog and website visits.

Additionally, 62% of unemployed adults had used their library in the past year, including many who visited libraries to complete an online job application, search employment databases and create resumes.

So what does all this mean for you?

A major gap in the Harris Poll, of course, is data on teen library usage; the poll does include “children’s use,” but that use is reported by adults, not children or under-18 teens themselves. Still, both the Harris data and The State of America’s Libraries Report can tell us a lot about what our teens might be experiencing in these tough economic times.

The Brookings Institute estimates that one in seven American children–about 10.5 million–has an unemployed parent as a result of the current recession. While the teens in this estimate might not be using your library to research job options, as so many of their parents are, they’re likely experiencing increased stress at home. They may be having difficulty finishing schoolwork, or may even be considering dropping out to look for work themselves.

What are you doing to support the teens in your library? Have you seen more teens and adults using online job resources? How will you provide services for the expanding numbers of patrons who will access your library by phone or computer?