Throughout the country people are losing their jobs as companies struggle with decreased sales. Rising energy costs, a sagging stock market, and declining consumer confidence threaten to derail the nation's longest economic expansion. The incoming Bush administration is using the threat of recession to bolster the argument for massive tax cuts. The Federal Reserve Bank has begun cutting interest rates.
Local economists say as the nation goes, so too does Minnesota.
Layoffs are hitting this region, people who assist dislocated workers say they're busier now than they've been in nearly a decade. One sign of economic trouble can be found in the auto industry and, locally, at the Ford Plant in St. Paul. The plant's shutting down for a week as part of a North America-wide production cut directly resulting from a decline in sales, according to Ford. The fear is that negative talk worries people and worried people are less likely to spend money and less spending leads to more weakness. At a machine-tool showroom in the Twin Cities, the owner doesn't want his name or the name of his business on the radio.