Category: The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

I wrote you guys earlier in the year to say we in St Louis had dealt with our first case of a family giving up custody of their child because they did not have the financial capability to care for the child. However, this scenario never became an epidemic or even a trend … at least in St. Louis city.

I place emphasis on "city" because St. Louis City is its own municipal county and entity. The surrounding counties – St. Louis County, St. Charles County and Jefferson County – have the majority of lower-middle class and middle class families living there. For their offices, incoming cases have skyrocketed.

This new trend started several months after the recession began, coinciding with the time that unemployment benefits ran out for people that were recently laid off.

We had been questioning for some time why metropolitan cities had not seen an influx of child abuse/neglect cases or children entering foster care. We weren't looking at our surrounding area. If we had been, we would have seen the answer, because the city clientele weren't the people losing their jobs and homes. Our clientele were already embedded in poverty. The city government has established programs and resources to help just those people. The other counties, having never seen so many people in financial duress, did not have the programs, resources, or infrastructure to act preventatively for so many people at once.

Photo of a derelict factory in St. Louis by Flickr user MadAboutCows.

The reader who submitted Friday's window writes:

I’m in the Energy sector supply business, and my company helps US manufacturers market their products overseas.  I can tell you this recession has put a lot of hurt on people in the oil industry.  With the price of oil plummeting most US equipment manufacturing companies had their backlogs dry up because of the lower rig count.  At one point, you had over 2000 Rigs drilling in the US, today we have slightly over 1000.  Many companies saw +50% drops in their sales figures due to the drop in rigs. 

The good news?  Because we work internationally, we had our best year ever last year as a exporter of US goods. 

When the business dries up in the states, most manufacturers went international for the first time.  Algeria for example has nearly 80% of its economy tied into their energy exports.  The drill regardless of price per barrel (relatively speaking) and when you drill you need equipment.  When we started our company in the late 90’s we had to court domestic manufacturers to work with us in foreign markets.  Now, we get to choose which ones we work with because they are all determined to not let another downturn ruin them.  In a sense, they are now diversifying their portfolio by looking outside of their usual borders.  US oilfield equipment manufacturers selling internationally used to be a nice luxury, now it’s almost required.

This reader was an information architect working on contract who had been out of a job for four months. Original post here. The reader writes:

I first wrote you in April, and I'm glad that person had no idea August was coming, because August was AWFUL. That was the month employers started auto-replying to job applications with a sinister "don't contact us unless we contact you, or we'll take your resume out of consideration" message. I hadn't been called by a recruiter or heard back from a job app for months, and I was going into debt to my parents at a massive rate and seriously considering giving my landlord notice so I could move back home to my childhood bedroom. Ugly, ugly month.

A few things happened in September. I got an interview and, just like the few prior interviews, got to the final stages before hearing that the job had been pulled "for budget reasons". But instead of leaving it, I immediately turned around and pitched myself as a contractor. (I know my initial email to you said I was a contractor, but there are different types — in 2008, I was in a full-time onsite contract-to-employee role through a staffing group, so really a "contractor" in name only.  2009 was a whole new ballgame, where I was really pitching myself as a self-employed freelancer, someone who'd be billing a handful of hours per week.) I'd sensed the department head was desperate for help, and figured this might be an HR restriction, and I was right — after some negotiation, I signed on as a part-time independent contractor.  This, paired with a completely random contact on a message board that turned into another ongoing working relationship, got my head above water by the end of October.

Not that October should be seen as the magical month where the recession suddenly lifted, mind you.  Everything came together in October, but I'd spent my unemployment focusing on a few projects, something I could show so the months weren't entirely wasted. I set up an extensive site for my LLC, I imported all my existing blogs to a central location, I started a new blog about urban gardening (I was home all the time anyhow, dammit), I did some free work for local NGOs, I wrote the majority of a novel. And it turns out that lots of that stuff played a role in getting me the work I have today. So while it felt like shouting into a void at the time, those projects became hugely valuable later.

Cautiously, I'd say I'm doing okay now. Today I'm working steadily as a freelancer, with four long-term clients and a bunch of others in the works. The money coming in is enough that I'm comfortably on top of my expenses, and I'm slowly climbing out of my own personal Pit of Debt (credit cards and parents), but at least I can see daylight. It's been no picnic getting here, though.

Nine months of unemployment, followed by three of self-employment. It's a new, piecemeal style of living; I work from my home, my hours can be bizarre. But I'm liking the variety. As a matter of survival I'm learning all sorts of new software and I'm using more of my accumulated skills than ever before. And I stopped being shy about hitting up friends and old coworkers to push my resume, and I'm starting to see those efforts bear fruit as well.

It wasn't easy getting into this freelancing thing, and I'm fully aware that luck and timing played a large part in where I am today.  I really was about a week away from packing up and moving, and I don't see many signs that I'd have gotten a full-time job by now.  I'm incredibly thankful for my new, weird career path.  The whole family's still getting potholders for Christmas, obviously, but I finally feel like I just might make it.

This reader was an information architect who had been out of work for four months. Original post here. The reader writes:

Cautiously, I'd say I'm doing okay now. Today I'm working steadily as a freelancer, with four long-term clients and a bunch of others in the works. The money coming in is enough that I'm comfortably on top of my expenses, and I'm slowly climbing out of my own personal Pit of Debt (credit cards and parents), but at least I can see daylight.

It's been no picnic getting here, though. I first wrote you in April, and I'm glad that person had no idea August was coming, because August was AWFUL.

That was the month employers started auto-replying to job applications with a sinister "don't contact us unless we contact you, or we'll take your resume out of consideration" message, I hadn't been called by a recruiter or heard back from a job app for months, and I was going into debt to my parents at a massive rate and seriously considering giving my landlord notice so I could move back home to my childhood bedroom. Ugly, ugly month.

A few things happened in September. I got an interview and, just like the few prior interviews, got to the final stages before hearing that the job had been pulled "for budget reasons". But instead of leaving it, I immediately turned around and pitched myself as a contractor. (I know my initial email to you said I was a contractor, but there are different types — in 2008, I was in a full-time onsite contract-to-employee role through a staffing group, so really a "contractor" in name only.  2009 was a whole new ballgame, where I was really pitching myself as a self-employed freelancer, someone who'd be billing a handful of hours per week.) I'd sensed the department head was desperate for help, and figured this might be an HR restriction, and I was right — after some negotiation, I signed on as a part-time independent contractor.  This, paired with a completely random contact on a message board that turned into another ongoing working relationship, got my head above water by the end of October.

Not that October should be seen as the magical month where the recession suddenly lifted, mind you.  Everything came together in October, but I'd spent my unemployment focusing on a few projects, something I could show so the months weren't entirely wasted. I set up an extensive site for my LLC, I imported all my existing blogs to a central location, I started a new blog about urban gardening (I was home all the time anyhow, dammit), I did some free work for local NGOs, I wrote the majority of a novel. And it turns out that lots of that stuff played a role in getting me the work I have today. So while it felt like shouting into a void at the time, those projects became hugely valuable later.

So that's where I am now. Nine months of unemployment, followed by three of self-employment. It's a new, piecemeal style of living; I work from my home, my hours can be bizarre. But I'm liking the variety. As a matter of survival I'm learning all sorts of new software and I'm using more of my accumulated skills than ever before. And I stopped being shy about hitting up friends and old coworkers to push my resume, and I'm starting to see those efforts bear fruit as well.

It wasn't easy getting into this freelancing thing, and I'm fully aware that luck and timing played a large part in where I am today.  I really was about a week away from packing up and moving, and I don't see many signs that I'd have gotten a full-time job by now.  I'm incredibly thankful for my new, weird career path.  The whole family's still getting potholders for Christmas, obviously, but I finally feel like I just might make it.

This reader was an underemployed ex-paralegal who had moved to New Hampshire to be closer to her girlfriend. Original post here. The reader writes:

Well, I bounced between my retail job (no hours over the summer but I'm up to my ears now), another part-time job with a family-owned business (no hours since summer; their son quit his retail job and replaced me), and making a serious attempt at starting my own web design business.  The design business waxes and wanes, and even when it's waxing as it is this week, the payments are irregular or (in a couple cases) impossible to wring from my clients.  I found one job I cannot do: bill collector. 

When my car's brakes went in May, that was a huge setback, but luckily I got them fixed before I hurt anyone.  I've been living on about 50% my own money, 50%  my parents' bailout since then.

So I'm moving back home, for the third time, sometime in January.  I'm still trying to be optimistic.  I have a better network in CT.  My ex-boss is already coming up with projects for me to do and asking around at the courthouse.  Dad knows people in Hartford and at the casinos, and some of my high school friends own or run small businesses that are hiring (yay for Facebook!).  I'm also thinking about going back to school, this time for something more practical than music theory, and that would mean sending my current student loan payments back into grace period — not a permanent solution by any means, but room to breathe for a while.

This reader was a project and quality control manager who worked primarily in concrete. Original post here. The reader writes:

My optimism about finding another job in construction within a few months after getting laid off last March turned out to be badly misplaced. It's been nine months and counting and I have yet to find a job – I haven't even landed an interview after sending out maybe a hundred or so resumes. I've personally talked to the top project managers on some of the major heavy civil projects in the area (Metro extension, Virginia HOT lanes), but have come up empty. It's a terrible job market right now, plain and simple.

I spent about two and a half months during the summer helping a friend do some renovation and home improvement work on his house for some pretty decent CUT (Cash Under the Table). However, the contractor he hired to do the work was forced upon him by his father in-law and turned out to be a thief, a liar, and a lunatic; I hated the guy with a passion and felt like quitting on numerous occasions, but my friend's a great guy, his wife had just given birth to their second child, and it would have been a real shit move to just up and walk away amidst so much chaos.

In terms of personal finances, I have unemployment through June 2010, my personal savings, and the generosity of my family. The unemployment helps but it's not nearly enough and it certainly doesn't cover my bare-bones monthly expenses, like the mortgage, car payment, and condo fee. As I wrote last March, my condo's 5-year ARM resets in August 2010, and I anticipate that my monthly mortgage payment will balloon significantly; renting it out looks more and more like the most sensible thing to do since 1) it's still badly underwater, so refinancing is out of the question, and 2) it's still badly underwater, so selling it would cost me more money than I can afford to pay off right now. Also, unless Congress acts to extend COBRA subsidies, my monthly payment for health insurance will triple starting next month.

So right now life is somewhat bleak from a professional and financial standpoint. But I still have my family, especially my dog and my brother's dog (I can send pictures if you want), and I am not destitute. I'm very fortunate that I don't have a wife and children to support, otherwise I would be in much more desperate straits.

I've applied to business school at Virginia Tech in their executive MBA program and am currently scrambling to get letters of recommendation and financial aid forms squared away, since they told me that there was still space available for the cohort starting in late January. I'm hoping that a business degree will arm me with certain skills that I have not been able to develop over the past several years, particularly in finance and accounting. (Nearly five years in management in private business taught me an object lesson: you learn only the skills that your superiors want you to learn. But it's up to you to go out and get the specialized knowledge that will make you dangerous.)

This reader was an unemployed journalist whose wife had had an extramarital affair. Original post here. The reader writes:

Things have actually been going well here, for the most part. My wife, sadly, lost her job in early November, so it will be a slightly stingy Christmas, but I was able to take my time away from work to find something rewarding that I enjoy doing. I'm self-employed (and marginally enough that I still freak out about finding enough work every month), but we're doing all right.

And we're doing all right personally too.

The work on the marriage, which I don't know we would have undertaken had I not been unemployed, continues apace. It's definitely a merrier Christmas than last year's was, and we have enough breathing room (and enough love in our hearts, I guess) to buy each other a few small gifts. We're crawling out of two holes, very slowly and by tiny inches, but we're making it out nonetheless.

It's worth saying that the only reason we have health insurance anymore and the only reason we're afloat is because of money from the ARRA. COBRA's been much, much more affordable than it was when we looked into it the last time we switched jobs, and that's directly thanks to the passage of that bill.

Photo by Megan Scheminske.

A reader writes:

I am a 45 year old professional, employed in the legal and financial sectors.  I have a wife, two beautiful children and a home in north New Jersey.  In the last few years my compensation has been back-loaded, so we relied heavily on my year end bonus (which made up the bulk of my compensation).  Bonuses were dependent on firm performance which, up until last year, was not an issue.  In late 2008,  my company had a massive downsizing.  I was laid off without a severance package and no bonus in the middle of the recession. 

We had enough savings to live off of for several months, but finding work in this economy was impossible.  It was a humbling experience as I had never before been unemployed.  I signed up for unemployment benefits for the first time in my life, and my family had to forgo many of the comforts that we had grown use to over the years. 

In March, I decided to start my own business.  It has been a rough year, as we went many months without income, and have depleted most of our savings.  We are starting to gain traction, however, and 2010 looks promising.  We are not out of the woods by any means, but we are optimistic.

I write to point out how two of President Obama's initiatives have directly impacted my family.  First, I was able to get a significant reduction in my mortgage interest from my lender as a result of the Home Affordable Modification program.  Second, through the COBRA subsidy, we were able to keep our health insurance in tact for the last nine months (and now for an additional six months more).  This was significant, as my wife had to recently undergo an operation that would have wiped out our savings had we not been insured.  These two initiatives by our President have saved us thousands of dollars a month and have given me the breathing room to create a business that, hopefully, will lead to a secure and stable future for me and my family. 

Before this year I never gave much thought to social programs, frankly, I neither needed or qualified for them.  However, when the time came that I needed assistance, the government was there to help.  I am extremely grateful to our President and his allies in Congress, as their policies have had an immediate and direct impact on my family.  Without the MHA and Cobra subsidy, it is likely that we would have lost our home and filed for bankruptcy. 

Our reader writes:

In the nine months since I emailed you about my booming, recession-proof dating coach business, I've all but stopped any and all in-person coaching and consultations for helping guys with their love lives.

But not because of the economy or any adverse market forces. On the contrary, men are just as desperate and lonely as ever. Around May, I recognized that my time/effort would be much better applied in the long-run in growing the internet aspect of my business — if I could build it up to a certain level and leverage the ability to automate sales and deliver advice to thousands of men the world over, then I could basically print money and move on to other ventures.

I took advantage of the plummeting rent prices around the country (did you know you could live decently in Vegas for $600/month?), and rock-bottom prices of specialists in the Philippines and India.

I also spent a few months in Europe cashing in on all of the prospects over there that I hadn't had a chance to meet or work with before. In the meantime, I slaved away at the online aspect of my business, and it's finally cresting the threshold of being sustainable and very profitable. The coming year will see me living in Argentina, then Spain, and maybe Japan or Thailand later in the year… all while working 5-10 hours a week and outsourcing the rest. I'll probably avoid the US for the foreseeable future — one, because I'm young, mobile and single, and two, because I'm kind of sickened by the political realities from the last eight years.

But in all of this time, my industry and market have only continued to expand — men opening up and seeking help in their love lives is a growing trend and here to stay, regardless of any economic forces. On top of that, recessions can be kind to entrepreneurs in that you can get started for relatively cheap, and then catch the market demand back on the uptick.

I suppose I lucked out in both cases. I'm extremely grateful for my position as I know I'm in a very, very small minority of people who benefited/persevered through this period. One thing I've learned is that these recessions aren't blips or irregularities, but a reality of our market economics. So in the future, I'll continue to position myself to weather these storms to the best of my abilities rather than get caught with my pants down.

A reader writes:

Alaska is always a couple years behind the rest of the nation, and the recession is finally hitting us:  hard.  I was laid off from my job of 5 1/2 years in August and am on my last week completing a project for another firm.  My friend Robyn and her wife are being laid off from their jobs as journeyman carpenters w/ one of Alaska's largest contractors for the first time in ten years.  Alaska is a prevailing wage state, which is one of the reasons I live here, but that is now hurting us.  Lower 48 contractors are underbidding locals right and left.  I applied for work at Red Dog Mine along w/ 400 other land surveyors, and did not get an interview.  So, it looks like I am moving to Kazakhstan.  Temporarily (I think) to train in their surveyors on Leica brand instrumentation and translate old USSR coordinate systems into real world UTM.  My only hope is that I get the job.