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Continent-Sized Storm

By Ryan Morris and Scott Bland

Updated: September 30, 2011 | 9:32 a.m.
September 29, 2011 | 4:02 p.m.

From 2008 to 2010, North Dakota was the only state that did not suffer a decline in either its median family income or total employment. Over that period, the median income declined in every other state, while the number of people at work fell everywhere else except in Alaska and Texas. But, even amid this widespread distress, the sharpest losses were concentrated in the Sun Belt and the Rust Belt states—many of them among the swing states likely to decide the 2012 presidential election.