The One-Two Punch of Job Losses and Falling Home Values

"States and localities are recovery-challenged. The problem for policymakers who would like to give states and localities a helpful push up the recovery ladder is that the troubles that bedevil those economies are not evenly distributed.

A report in March from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia indicates that states are recovering from this recession at greatly different speeds. In February, the bank's coincident index (an index that combines four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic for each state) increased in 21 states, decreased in 22 and remained unchanged in seven."

Governing's Penelope Lemov writes that the "double trouble" of job losses and home value losses are posing serious challenges for some cities, but many experts suggest focusing on jobs and letting the housing market right itself.