U.S.News & World Report Tumblelog

But women tend to be better educated than men, with more relevant skills, which means economic power will continue to shift toward women, as it has been for the last 20 years. The unemployment rate for women, for example, is 8.1 percent, while it’s 8.3 percent for men. During the recession, the gap was much bigger, favoring women by more than two percentage points for many months. That overall trend is likely to persist throughout the recovery. “Women are uniquely positioned to take advantage of jobs in tomorrow’s growth industries,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a recent report, “and tend to enjoy stronger earnings growth relative to men.”

Some economists began to refer to the depths of the recession as a “mancession,” since the bulk of the jobs lost were among men in male-dominated industries such as construction and manufacturing. During the recession (defined as December 2007 to June 2009), the economy shed more than 7 million jobs. Men fared worse in the recession, suffering more than 70 percent of the job losses. But strikingly, in the midst of a slow recovery, women have lost 117,000 jobs while men gained 1,140,000—a staggering difference of about a million jobs.

Traditional pension plans, paid family leave, and even the company picnic are all on the decline. Employers have significantly cut many of the benefits they offer to workers over the past five years. Some 77 percent of companies report that benefits offerings have been negatively affected by the slow pace of recovery, according to a Society for Human Resource Management survey of 600 human resources professionals.

However, while foreclosures and slow job growth continue to be a drag on economic growth, there are a few glimmers of hope for the U.S. economy. Here are five reasons to be hopeful about the nation’s economic future.

The recovery, unfortunately, doesn’t apply to everybody. Workers with up-to-date skills and the vigorous energy it takes to adapt constantly are poised for a return to prosperity. But many others are stuck flat-footed in a confusing, Darwinian economy, out of good options and unsure what to do. Some of that is due to the depth of the recent recession and the abrupt transformation of industries such as housing and construction. But people also make a lot of mistakes that limit their own opportunities. Here are seven of the most commonplace ways to fall behind in an uncertain economy.

Since the crash in 2008, the government has replaced the $1 trillion that disappeared by spending an extra $1 trillion themselves, as a way of keeping the party at Bernie’s going. But at some point the global capital markets will shut it down and discipline the U.S. government’s spending. The Fed’s program, QE2, is kind of a smokescreen because they’ve run out of other ways to keep the music playing. The capital markets are going to temper the federal government.

It will end with a Treasury auction failing, as almost happened five months ago in Germany. In fact, just recently the government bought back a big chunk of a Treasury instrument it auctioned off two weeks ago. That was either a disguised way for a Treasury auction to fail, or it was another disguised way to subsidize the Wall Street banks who took part.

These problems all flow from the fact that it’s politically popular to spend, and it’s not politically popular to tax.

Continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) offer a full range of services—independent living, assisted living and care for disabled residents, and often dementia care as well. These are often the most expensive facilities for seniors, and they’ve had to scramble the hardest to cope with the downturn.

Economic growth in 2011 is likely to exceed 3 percent, and perhaps even hit 4 percent. That would be the best performance in more than a decade. Workers who held onto their jobs during the Great Recession can finally exhale, with growing confidence that their job security is improving. Companies are grudgingly starting to hire back a few of the unemployed. And the latest stimulus and tax-cut plan out of Washington will put cash into practically every taxpayer’s pocket, just to make sure the economy keeps marching forward.

Yet the economic landscape in the aftermath of the Great Recession is littered with wreckage. Battered industries like construction and real estate won’t return to normal for years. A few states, including California and Illinois, are nearly insolvent, with tax hikes and service cuts the only way out. Homeowners have lost trillions of dollars’ worth of home equity, thanks to the housing bust. And the number of Americans who remain unemployed is far larger than at any time since the Great Depression.

For millions of Americans, in other words, 2011 won’t feel like a recovery at all, but like the fourth year of a painfully long recession. Here’s who is likely to feel it most.