“Transportation Made Transparent” Abogo is an interactive tool that shows how transportation impacts the affordability and sustainability of where you live. Not only does Abogo measure the money an average household in your region would spend on getting around, but it also calculates the CO2 use generated from the predicted car use. The tool is powered the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which gives folks a more complete idea of how a neighborhood fits into a family’s budget.
GSE Tree The conference held Tuesday on the future of GSEs may not have resulted in decisions; it did result in a slew of suggestions. Cambridge Winter predicted what could result when a suggestion, such as keeping GSEs hybrid public/private enterprises, became a decision.
Little Guy Woes According to the WSJ, most of the job losses at the end of last year took place at the smallest firms, businesses with fewer than 50 employees. While small businesses created 54.1% new jobs in the fourth quarter, the sector also accounted for 61.8% of job cuts.
White-collar Moonlighters White-collar workers have been one of the hardest hit by pay cuts, furloughs and lay offs in the past year. In order to maintain their house, and quality of life, many workers have crammed a second job into their already 40-plus hour workweek. Moonlighting may have started as a temporary reprieve during the shaky economy, but with a full recovery still far way off, the second job mentality may become permanently engrained into the American way of life.
While We’re on the Topic . . . The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 last weeks to 500,000. The recent surge in unemployment claims helped it hit the highest level since November 2009.
Image: Discover your house true affordability, via htaindex.cnt.org/