Series: Hope and Struggle in America

Joni Taylor learned the hard way that pets suffer during hard times too. Now she’s opened an Oregon food bank for the four-legged.

April 11, 2009

Business is up at a downtown Manhattan shoe repair. The out-of-work and penny-pinching bankers and brokers are lining up to save their old soles.

March 21, 2009

But telling clients that they’re going to lose a job can stress out even the most prescient.

March 15, 2009

Yazan Ammari, 23, earned nearly a quarter of a million dollars as a professional video-game player. Now he’s back at Mom and Dad’s.

March 7, 2009

The funeral director knows: Good times mean fancy services; bad times mean unclaimed remains. So some of the dead stay with him, near those from other decades, other bad times.

Feb. 22, 2009