Chicago's middle class has suffered shrinking wages more than almost any other area in the nation over the last decade according to a study by the Brookings Institute.

Nationally, the middle class shrank over the course of the decade as income for the typical U.S. household declined $2,241 between 2008 and 1999. But workers in the Chicago metropolitan area were hit harder than most.  

Chicago's workers experienced a 8.1% decline in wages between 2000 and 2008, ranking it 96 out of 100 metropolitan areas. 

Roughly 290,000 American jobs were created last month, the fourth straight month of job growth the country has seen following two years of despair that saw 9 million jobs disappear.

The jobless rate moved even higher to 9.9%, although economists say that's not all bad news because 800,000 workers entered the workforce, including many discouraged workers who had dropped out. 

Manufacturing, one of the industries hardest hit by the recession, is up for the ninth consecutive month.   According to the monthly released manufacturing index, the increase was slightly better than projected by economists and was buoyed mostly by jumps in productivity and the creation of manufacturing jobs.

(Sources: AFL-CIO, Workers Independent News)