Just 11.9% of Americans moved last year, a 60-year low

Another casualty of the recession and the housing bust: our national mobility.

The percentage of Americans who changed residences last year fell to the lowest since the government began keeping records in 1948, the Census Bureau reported today.

Just 11.9% of the population moved last year, down from 13.2% in 2007. The rate was as high as 16.1% as recently as 2000.

Most moves in 2008 were from one home or apartment to another in the same county. Just 1.6% of Americans moved between states, down from 1.7% the previous year and 3.1% in 2000.

With the crash in housing prices many people naturally are unable or unwilling to sell their homes. And with unemployment rising nationwide there is less incentive for people to move in search of better jobs.

But the national mobility rate has been in general decline since the mid-1980s. Americans moved much more frequently in the 1950s and 1960s, when the percentage of the population changing residences routinely was around 20% each year, Census data show.

-- Tom Petruno

9-week halt for GM's US plants

DETROITGENERAL Motors Corp is planning to temporarily close most of its US factories for up to nine weeks this summer because of slumping sales and growing inventories of unsold vehicles, two people briefed on the plan said on Wednesday.

The exact dates of the closures are not known, but both people said they will occur around the normal two-week shutdown in July to change from one model year to the next. Neither person wanted to be identified because workers have not been told of the shutdowns.
T. Rowe Price to cut 288 jobs, many from Baltimore region
Two-thirds of jobs cut to come from Baltimore region Baltimore money manager T. Rowe Price Group said Wednesday that it is cutting 5.5 percent of its work force, or 288 employees, with almost two-thirds coming from the Baltimore region.