NEW YORK – The Occupy Wall Street protests are hitting a nerve.

A dearth of jobs, overwhelming student loans and soaring health-care costs are just three major issues protesters have targeted. And regardless of politics, economic data suggests they’re not alone in their frustrations.

It may be why the protests have spread to other cities — including Boston, Cincinnati, Seattle and Washington, D.C. — after taking root in downtown New York nearly a month ago.

Take for example the unemployment rate, which has been stuck near 9 percent since the recession officially ended more than two years ago. When counting those who settle for part-time work or have quit looking, that rate rises to about 16.5 percent.

A crippled labor market also shifts bargaining power to employers, giving workers less leverage to seek raises. That could help explain why pay was nearly 2 percent less in August than it was a year earlier when adjusted for inflation.

Student loans are another common rallying point for protesters — as expressed in one sign that read “Want demands? How about student loan bailouts?”

The struggle to keep up with payments is clear; about 320,000 borrowers who entered repayment in 2009 defaulted on their student loans by the end of 2010, according to the Institute for College Access & Success. That’s up about 33 percent from the previous year.

Meanwhile, the cost of annual health insurance premiums for family coverage rose 9 percent this year and surpassed $15,000 for the first time, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. Some don’t have to worry about the uptick; an estimated 16 percent of the population does not have health insurance.

It’s that economic backdrop that has driven a diversity of protesters to the streets

While a few hundred have been camping out in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, many more join in for a few hours or a day to add their voices. Here’s a look at some of the protesters who ventured by in the past week, and the financial issues they’re dealing with:

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John Smith, 31, of Brooklyn, N.Y., works part time at Trader Joe’s because he hasn’t been able to find work in his field for over a year, despite having a master’s degree. He has about $45,000 in student loan debt. His girlfriend, Meropi Peponides, 27, a graduate student at Columbia University, will have about $50,000 by the time she graduates.

“I don’t know in the end what exactly this will achieve, if anything. But if it makes people wake up just a little bit, it’s worth it,” Peponides said. “The potential is huge. That’s why I’m here. I felt the potential somehow.”

Smith said he has sent out about 200 resumes in his search. He’s looking mainly for work with non-profit organizations. “The jobs that I’ve been applying for are all entry level jobs in my career field. I don’t think I’m shooting for the stars trying to get those jobs.” Smith said, noting that five years ago, before grad school, he was able to get work at that level.

He was carrying a sign that said, “I am the 99 percent,” a slogan that resonated with him. “It’s true. I am one of the many people that are having a lot of trouble finding ways to make it through things right now.”

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Tracy Blevins, 41-year-old Manhattan resident, has a doctorate in biomedical science but lost her job as an adjunct professor at Touro College this spring. She’s since been getting by on odd jobs; most recently, she acted as a cross-country driver for $2,000.

“I’m earning money off a license I got when I was 16, and still paying off the loans I had to take out to get my degree,” she said.

Even after nine years of paying down her loans, Blevins said she owes $10,000. She’s current on payments now, but said the loans have crippled her credit score and even prevented her from getting work in the past.

“I have paid and paid and paid and I still owe $10,000. It’s the interest that keeps me in debt,” she said.

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Steve and Barbara Diamond traveled nearly 100 miles to take part in the protest. They were motivated mainly by what they see as a disappearance of the middle class; and a connection between the economic problems of recent years and the amount of influence money has on politics. He held a sign criticizing the 2010 Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United, which overturned a previous ban on corporate spending in federal elections.

“Our government is being bought by wealthy people and corporations,” said Steve Diamond, a physician. “Unless you get the money out of the elections, you’ll end up with an oligarchy in this country.”

“My father used to say when he came to here from Europe that this was the `Golden Land,’” he said. But he’s not telling that to his own children: “This is what’s happened inside two generations.”

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Joe Foley, a 48-year-old freelance cinematographer living in Manhattan, finished paying off his $45,000 in student loans just five years ago. His girlfriend has $120,000 in student loans.

Foley said work has been fairly steady in recent years, but he worries that he doesn’t have any retirement savings or health insurance. He rents an inexpensive apartment and doesn’t carry a big credit card balance, but realizes he’s one broken leg away from being in serious debt.

“I was really hoping there was going to be a public option,” he said of the federal health care reforms. “It was pretty disappointing that it didn’t happen.”

For now, he considers himself lucky that he’s never had any health issues. His approach has been to “drink lots of water and miso soup and do yoga.”

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Ben Bear, 56, a San Francisco resident visiting his daughter in New York, works at a food bank and feels his job is secure.

“Unfortunately I’m doing well because I’m in a growth industry,” Bear said. “The demand for food keeps going up. Everyone’s got this image of who accesses a food bank as a homeless person. But it’s families and the working poor.”

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Susan Knauss, 55, from upstate Livingston, N.Y., worked in the telecommunications industry for the past 25 years. But she was laid off a few weeks ago from the New York State Department of Transportation. She plans to get by on unemployment checks for the time being.

“But in two weeks, I won’t have health insurance,” she said.

She’s also worried about her retirement savings. Even after making maximum contributions for most of her career, she worries that she hasn’t saved enough and that the volatile market could eat away at the value of her 401(k).

“Where can you put your money where it doesn’t go away?”

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Maureen McMahon, 62, of Manhattan, a former school teacher, works part time by choice at a museum. She pointed to problems like the high number of uninsured as among the concerns that brought her out to protest; noting that the disparity in health care reflects that the economic system doesn’t treat everyone equally.

“I’m an investor, I have stock,” she said with some irony, as she held a sign that said “Tax Wall Street.”

“I believe that corporations can be very useful and very compassionate,” she said, adding that unfortunately, that kind of corporate responsibility seems to have diminished lately.

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Katy Ryan, 35, of Jersey City, N.J., made a good living for years as a makeup artist, but since the downturn has struggled to make ends meet. She’s getting fewer clients and having to cut her rates. These days she even has to take some work as a bartender so she and her 8-year-old daughter can get by. “I didn’t have to do that for years.”

Her main concern is that the widening gulf between the rich and poor, and the notion that a better life is slipping out of reach for those who aren’t wealthy. She noted that her mother was a long time member of the United Auto Workers, and that she saw her benefits and wages chiseled away over the years.

With the first half of 2010 in the books, timid investors have shown a clear preference for bond funds over stock funds. Through the end of June, investors have poured about $139 billion into bond funds and just under $3 billion into stock funds, according to Morningstar. Year-to-date, long-term government bond funds are by far the best-performing asset class–returning more than 13 percent.

Investors have flocked to bond funds for a number of reasons, including concerns over a wobbly stock market and fears that the U.S. might fall into a double-dip recession. The flash crash in May (when the Dow Jones Industrial average fell by roughly 1000 points in intraday trading) didn’t exactly inspire confidence in stock market investors either. “There could be some really legitimate reasons for people pouring into bond funds,” says Miriam Sjoblom, Morningstar’s associate director of bond analysis. “It could be that in 2008 investors could discovered they owned too much of their portfolio in stocks for their risk tolerance.”

On the other hand, investors may not know what they’re getting themselves into entirely. “The returns and the opportunities that were available in 2009 were once-in-a-decade-type investment opportunities, so if you’re looking at the fixed-income market with those kind of expectations I would say you’re probably going to be disappointed in your returns,” says John Diehl, senior vice president in the retirement division at the Hartford.

[See U.S. News's list of The 100 Best Mutual Funds for the Long Term, and use our Mutual Fund Score to find the best investments for you.]

It’s important to make sure you’re making a well-informed decision. Whether there is a bond bubble brewing or not, here are four themes to consider when selecting a bond fund in today’s tumultuous investing climate:

Flight to safety. Diehl says his biggest worry is that the majority of the inflows into bond funds are driven by fear and panic. “If fear is the primary driver for why people are buying bond funds, then in my mind the biggest risk is an overconcentration in the most secure securities like treasuries,” he says. Regardless of what asset class investors are entering or exiting, they need to be aware of the importance of diversification. Treasuries are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, so they’re virtually the safest investment that money can buy. When there is a lot of uncertainty in the markets, investors generally rush into treasuries. Diehl is concerned that with treasury yields near all-time lows, investors aren’t being compensated enough for their investment.

Risk of interest rate hikes. There hasn’t been a clear indication of when rates will raise, but when you’re close to zero all you can do is go up, Diehl says. The Federal Reserve has kept the target range for the federal funds rate–what the Fed charges banks to borrow money on a short-term basis–between zero and 0.25 percent since December 2008 and repeated its pledge to keep rates low for an “extended period” since March 2009. “We’re in a 30-year decline in interest rates,” Diehl says. “If you think about 30 years of interest rate decline, it’s probably very easy for people to forget what happens in a rising [rate] environment.” Investors who are parked in ultrasafe investments like treasuries could see their returns slashed once the Fed finally raises rates.

[See When Will The Fed Finally Raise Rates?]

No one can predict exactly when rates will rise, but you can protect yourself by diversifying your bond investments by duration (a measure of interest-rate sensitivity), credit quality, and sector. Diehl suggests more investors consider investing in corporate bonds or even to a certain degree in high-yield bonds (which are generally more risky than other types of fixed-income asset classes). The Hartford currently believes that high-yield default rates in 2010 will be around 5 percent, while the default rate in investment-grade–or the highest quality–corporates will be below 1 percent. “So they look at that and say default losses should remain contained, therefore if you’re getting the yield advantage in those types of securities it may be good to diversify into that,” Diehl says. If investors get caught allocating too much of their portfolio in low-yielding, safer investments like treasuries then they could see major hiccups in their returns–or even losses–as interest rates are raised over time.

[See Is Your Portfolio Ready for A Double-Dip Recession?]

Abandoning money market funds. Sjoblom’s one concern is that many investors have deserted money market funds because they’re yielding almost nothing in today’s low interest rate environment. Through the end of June, money market funds have seen net outflows of more than $487 billion since the beginning of the year, according to Morningstar. While those money market funds may be yielding close to nothing, it may not be wise for investors to move money that they can’t afford to lose into riskier asset classes. “There have been tons of flows into short-term bonds funds and short-term muni funds, and I wonder if people really understand those funds can lose money if interest rates were to rise suddenly,” she says.

Be selective in the emerging markets. Of the almost $140 billion that has poured into bond funds, about $7 billion worth of investors’ money has made its way into emerging markets bond funds. Why the sudden inflows? One word: debt. Many developed nations like the U.S., UK, and some in Europe have massive deficits, while other emerging markets countries like China boast fiscal surpluses, fast-growing economies, and hungry consumers. “Their debt loads are significantly lower than their developed markets counterparts,” says Luz Padilla, portfolio manager of the DoubleLine Emerging Markets Fixed Income fund. Over the past year, the category has put up big numbers–returning about 20 percent. Padilla is optimistic about the potential for the asset class to do well, but she cautions investors that some of these short-term returns aren’t sustainable over the long run. Going forward, she believes investors should expect these funds to return somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 percent rather than 10-plus percent.

[See Why Emerging Markets Belong in Your Portfolio.]

If you’re interested in diversifying your portfolio through investments in emerging markets debt, Padilla has one warning: Be aware of country-specific risks. Emerging market countries present a lot of opportunities, but there are risks that go along with investing in countries whose businesses use less transparent accounting techniques and whose governments are often times unstable. While there are many funds out there that broadly track emerging market indices like the JPMorgan Emerging Markets Bond Index, Padilla believes investors need to be more selective. She points to countries like the Philippines and Venezuela, which both make up fairly large parts of the index. The Philippines, she believes, is overvalued. As for Venezuela, Padilla says she has stayed away from there for a long time because she believes there is a chance that one day Hugo Chavez could wake up and decide he didn’t want to pay off his country’s debt anymore. “What I’ve become wary of is when I start hearing people saying, ‘Oh I have to be invested in certain countries because I can’t be underweight a certain country or a certain region like Asia,’” she says. “To me that tells me that people aren’t necessarily doing their homework.”

Padilla also says investors need to dig down into exactly what kind of debt their fund is holding. She says many funds are heavy in sovereign debt right now (it makes up a large part of that index), but she says her team is focusing on shorter date high-quality corporate bonds for the time being because they present more attractive yields and the repayment risk is low.