1. One Sixth of What? The health care debate was the story of the year in Washington, so it’s no surprise that it hit a nerve with EconomyStory readers as well. While progress has been made since we looked at what healthcare costs really mean, in the new year, the bill will reach President Obama’s desk. Here are some recent thoughts from NPR listeners about the current health care bill. Health care also took center stage in a game from American Public Media, where you decide how tax dollars get spent.

2. Water, Water Everywhere The close ties between water, the economy, and politics brought a number of investigative stories from California, which faced a huge drought in 2009.

3. Men Men Suits vs. Corduroy Patches One of the most successful shows on TV this year lent itself to a popular EconomyStory post. The series Mad Men on AMC had everyone throwing back to classic 60s looks and highball drinks on Sunday nights, prompting NPR to do a piece on a new Brooks Brothers suit, styled in the Mad Men tradition. The price tag, however, was something not everyone could hang their fedora on this year.

4. One House One Town One Lecture You can’t talk about the economy of 2009 without mentioning the real estate bust. In Missouri, The Economy Project looked at one filmmaker’s take on the housing bubble, and NewsHour’s Patchwork Nation examined how the crisis played out around the country.

5. Watch and Learn When PBS launched it’s new video widget this fall, the web responded and now the video player is on dozens of station and program sites, featuring stories from shows like NewsHour, Frontline, and Nightly Business Report. You can add it to your personal site as well. Check out some of the best videos of the year that are up now:

Chicago holiday train/Credit: Flickr user Morydd

The holiday season is off to a rocky start, as many families have less money for gifts and travel. But things are starting to look up in some parts of the country, and even hard-hit areas are taking a glass-half-full approach to the new year.

At WEKU in Kentucky, Charles Compton reports that maybe we’ve had Scrooge wrong all these years. While he wasn’t happy, he might not have been as miserly and mean as meets the eye.

“Citing research done by the Ghost of Christmas Past, psychologist Susan Mathews concludes Ebenezer Scrooge was in pain.
“The longer that I work with people and the more I encounter people who have had life struggles or who are currently in pain, the more I realize that people tend to do the things they do for a reason,” she said. “I find that life experiences absolutely shape our actions, whatever they may be.”

If you’re feeling Scrooge-like and want some inspiration to get out of the funk, a new Michigan Public Radio project hosted by Jennifer White has a collection of stories about how Americans are dealing with the recession.

In Ohio, one church is having a Blue Christmas, offering a place for its community members who are feeling down this year, WYSO reports.

“Collins says that the holidays can bring up memories of those that have passed away. Also, families are facing more financial hardships than in years past.
“The thing about Christmas or any holiday, it kind of brings up all of those losses and hurts and anxieties. If you’re going to hurt, that’s the time you’re going to feel that pain,” says Collins.
Collins felt that Blue Christmas was a way to help people share their grief. During the service, each person is asked to light a candle to commemorate a loss. He says all of the lit candles act as a visual reminder for people, so they’ll know they’re not alone.”

Things are looking slightly better in California, one of the hardest hit job markets in the country, where there was some good holiday news today. KQED reported that the economy will be slowly lifting out of recession, according to a forecast from Beacon Economics.

And to start off your weekend on a holiday note, NPR Music has compiled its annual list of holiday music. Enjoy!

Times of Crisis, from Reuters, is tracking the global economic crisis on an interactive timeline, starting in September 2008 and plotting images, stories, and data that represent how the world has changed in the past year. Milestones like the $85 billion loan from the U.S. government to AIG (September 2008), to trends like a growing fine art market (October 2008), to tips for consumers about how to cope with the recession (April 2009) are plotted on the “wall”. There’s also a blog area where visitors can answer the question “how has the credit crisis affected you?”

The Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on including middle and low income workers in economic policy, recently launched Economy Track, which lets you explore job sand employment figures in easy-to-read graphs. The unemployment rate chart, for example, compares demographic figures as well as numbers from the current recession compared with economic downturns in 2001, 1990, 1981 and 1973.

The PBS economy video widget, which we’ve featured here before, is including more and more content, with stories from The PBS NewsHour, interviews from Tavis Smiley with economics experts, and full-length Frontline pieces.