Economic News For Today

This.

Cordoba, 28, rented a three-bedroom home in Riverside for six months with the help of so-called Section 8 funds, money provided by the federal government through local housing agencies. In June, when her landlord could no longer make the mortgage payments on the house Cordoba was renting, she and her three children had to move to a hotel.

Is.

The number of institutions on the FDIC's "problem list" rose to 117 at the end of June from 90 at the end of March, a 30% increase. More worrisome for the FDIC, assets of the problem banks rose to $78.3 billion from $26.3 billion, a 200% jump. The data include IndyMac Bancorp, which had $32 billion in assets when it failed in July.

Not.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller U.S. national home price index fell 15.4% in the second quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier. The decline was the largest in 20 years for the index, which covers the entire U.S.

Good.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver denounced a kosher meatpacking plant accused of child labor violations, echoing Upton Sinclair’s disdain of cruelty toward immigrants.

The governor wrote a guest column in the Des Moines Sunday Register that criticized Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville for allegedly employing dozens of underage workers and taking advantage of a failed federal immigration system.