[freespirited]

IIRC, the DC area is doing best at resisting the real estate meltdown (as measured by the Case-Schiller index).

[muawiyah]

Initially the average price in Springfield (a typical DC suburb) fell from a high of $600,000 down to $180,000. There's been a bit of a recovery, but everybody's assessment is off about $200,000 ~

Still, most people here are still employed and they aren't buying and selling houses at the previous rate. That's because banks are not making loans ~ unless you have some substantial equity to play with.

Funniest thing, folks in the DC area lost massive amounts of equity just like everyone else.

[madprof98]

Meanwhile, how many people in the District have never in their lives held a job?

[bray]

And this is the problem.

[SengirV]

Obviously the people writing this are looking at figures and not talking to people. I know many people out of work in the DC area. They have been looking for months and months without even getting an interview. A new Wegmans opened up by me with some small stores around it as well, I’m guess that is where many hundreds of jobs that count as added come from.

The value of my home has dropped almost 50% from the high in 2007. Sounds like an economic paradise to me *sarcasm*

[Starboard]

There are lots of people in D.C. who work in government jobs, who never have to worry about layoffs. The salaries are high — not the low salaries that government workers used to be paid — and the benefits are fabulous.

Quite true. $100+K salaries for government workers in DC (13/14/15 levels) are commonplace, if not typical. Benefits are second to none. Most contractors rake in good money too. Washington DC is basically a gigantic trough of money that is constantly replenished from taxpayers around the country. Of course this leads to monumental waste and corruption. As Will Rogers famously said: we have the best government money can buy.

[dajeeps]

I smell a mass layoff coming to the capitol on Nov. 2. I’ll just love it when Nancy Pelosi loses her job.

A recession is when your neighbor looses his job.
A depression is when you lose your job.
And a recovery is when Pelosi/Reid/Obama lose theirs.

[napscoordinator]

Everyone who is unemployed should try for a job in DC, but live in Virginia. Just some good advice. Go where the jobs are but live where the conservatives live.