Tracy Davidson

USA TODAY:
Rapidly rising pay and benefits in the armed forces have lifted many military towns into the ranks of the nation’s most affluent communities, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
The hometown of the Marines’ Camp Lejeune — Jacksonville, N.C. — soared to the nation’s 32nd-highest income per person in 2009 among the 366 U.S. metropolitan areas, [...]

USA TODAY
Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of construction and other heavy machinery, said Thursday that it will build a hydraulic excavator manufacturing plant in Victoria, Texas, that will employ more than 500 people.
The plant will triple Caterpillar’s hydraulic excavator production capacity in the U.S., and double the number of Caterpillar’s U.S. employees making excavators. Construction [...]

Think branding is only for celebrities and cola companies? Think again.
Today whatever reputation you have is spreading quickly across the Internet, thanks to Google, industry blogs, and social-networking sites. (Even failing to turn up on search engines says something about you.)
That makes it critically important to take control of your professional image, or “brand,” says [...]

Cash-strapped cities and counties have been cutting jobs to cope with massive budget shortfalls — and that tally could edge up to nearly 500,000 if Congress doesn’t step up to help.
Local governments are looking to eliminate 8.6% of their total full-time equivalent positions by 2012, according to a new survey released Tuesday by the National [...]

Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday it was recalling more than 400,000 older-model vehicles sold in the United States, citing potential steering-related problems in both.
The Japanese automaker said the recall would affect 373,000 Toyota Avalons manufactured between 2000 to 2004. The company said the vehicle’s steering lock bar could break under certain conditions, increasing the risk [...]

USA TODAY
The unemployment rate in about three-quarters of the nation’s largest metro areas rose last month as nearly one million teenagers entered the work force looking for summer jobs.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that the unemployment rate rose in 291 of 374 areas in June from May. It fell in 55 areas and was flat [...]

United Technologies will cut another 1,500 this year and next on top of the 900 positions it has already eliminated in 2010, the company said Monday.
The industrial conglomerate last week posted almost a 14 percent increase in second-quarter net income, citing a “relentless focus on cost.” It cut deeply into its payroll during the worst [...]

State unemployment agencies are gearing up to resume sending unemployment payments to millions of people as Congress moves to ship President Obama a measure to restore lapsed benefits.
After months of increasingly bitter stalemate, the Senate passed the measure Wednesday by a 59-39 vote. Obama is poised to sign the measure into law after a final [...]

As chief executive of a country emerging from a brutal recession, President Barack Obama faces a host of pressing issues. But two long-term problems have morphed into crises and have come to a head lately — immigration and joblessness. What’s not always so obvious is how closely linked the two issues have become.
In a July [...]

A bill to restore unemployment benefits to millions who have been out of work for more than six months has cleared a Senate hurdle.
The 60-40 vote came moments after Carte Goodwin, a successor to West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, was sworn in. Goodwin was the crucial 60th senator to defeat a Republican filibuster that has [...]