Jim Zarroli

The turmoil on Wall Street threatens to wreak financial havoc on a lot of people and institutions — including the country's 1.2 million nonprofits. Charities of all sizes are only beginning to recover from the recession. Now many are wondering how they'll survive another market plunge.

Camp Henry on Manhattan's Lower East Side is run by the venerable Henry Street Settlement, which provides a range of social services for low-income New Yorkers. Executive Director David Garza says after the 2008 financial crisis, corporate donations to the agency fell off.

The Federal Reserve has issued one of its gloomiest pronouncements about the economy in a long time: It says it sees little prospect that growth will rebound much anytime soon, and that it's ready to keep interest rates low for the next two years.

The recent downturn leaves Fed officials without any of its obvious ways of fixing the economy, and analysts say it may need to try steps it hasn't taken before.

Joe Gagnon spent part of his career as a Fed economist, and Tuesday he saw something he thought he'd never see at the central bank.

These days, many conservatives argue that slashing the nation's debt should be lawmakers' top priority as they try to revive the U.S. economy. Adding too much debt has eroded consumer confidence, they say, and paying it down would help jump-start growth.

But economists say the relationship between government debt and the weak economy isn't so clear.

Addressing the deficit has become a central focus of economic policy in Washington, and politicians like House Speaker John Boehner often talk about the deficit and unemployment in the same breath.

In the United States the recession officially ended two years ago, but in much of the country housing prices are still falling, jobs are hard to come by and growth remains weak.

A low growth rate is much more than just a number. Economists say that over time weak growth can have an insidious effect on a country's prospects and options in ways not everyone appreciates.

This was supposed to be the year the U.S. economy finally gained traction. Instead, it looks more and more like it's stuck in the mud, says former Federal Reserve member Alan Blinder.

Washington may be preoccupied with the debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling and the consequences of a default, but so far at least, the nation's financial markets seem to be taking the prospect in stride.

Although politicians from President Obama on down have been predicting for weeks that a debt default would wreak havoc on the global economy, interest rates on U.S. government debt remain near historic lows.

The 10-year Treasury bill, often seen as a barometer of investor sentiment toward the bond market, hovered around 3 percent on Friday.