10 Winners in the Recession

If there are silver linings to the recession, they're not immediately apparent. After all, the national unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, the highest since 1983, and economists predict it will reach 9 percent by 2010. Gross domestic product is forecast to shrink more this year than at any other time since the Great Depression. And across the country, stores are closing, municipal budgets are tightening, and banks are begging for bailouts.

But a handful of industries, companies, and products are doing well—relatively speaking. They run the gamut from Quarter Pounders to contraceptives, but they share a key component: Whether they help people pivot to new careers, cut costs at home, or simply escape from all the bad news, they're poised not only to weather the economic storm but to, in some way, benefit from it. "There always is a silver lining for people who choose to look past the doom and gloom and find one," says Robyn Feldberg, president of the National Résumé Writers' Association, which represents an industry that's bucking the overall trend. "In adversity, there is always potential for innovation."