A recent report by the research project found that one in three Americans raised in the middle class fall out of it as adults. Host Audie Cornish speaks with Erin Currier of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project about pressures on the American middle class.

The super committee in Congress is racing to find places to cut more than a trillion dollars out of the nation's deficit by Thanksgiving. The oil industry fears that ending its tax breaks may be one way the super committee will decide to raise revenue. That's spurred Big Oil's lobbying machine to work overtime.

Environmentalists are planning to encircle the White House Sunday to protest the Obama administration's expected support of a new pipeline through the Midwest to carry one of the dirtiest forms of oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. NPR's Richard Harris explains that the pipeline pits jobs against the environment.

Zynga is a company that makes money by selling nothing. Or, to be precise, by selling imaginary things — like tractors that plow farms on Facebook. Zynga is America's first "virtual goods" company to file for an initial public offering, but how real is the company's value?

Guy Raz talks to Zachary Goldfarb, reporter for the Washington Post, about the growth in Wall Street profits since the financial crisis. According to Goldfarb, Wall Street has made more money during the Obama administration's first term than in the entirety of the Bush administration. Goldfarb says these profits were the direct result of government policies — across two administrations — in response to the financial crisis.

Career Education Corporation, a major for-profit post-secondary education provider, is facing trouble after it admitted to supplying misleading information on job placement rates. Other for-profit companies are struggling too, under pressure from new federal rules.

The NBA's ongoing lockout affects the hometown cities in different ways. While most large cities with a professional basketball team can attract fans with other professional sports, in places like Oklahoma City, businesses suffer as a result. Economists estimate each lost game is a million-dollar hit to the city's economy.

More than 1 in 5 people lives below the poverty line in Spain, which has the highest rate of unemployment in the eurozone — more than 21 percent. And an increasing number of Spaniards are making ends meet with low pay and no benefits.