Category: The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

I work for a university in the online learning department and there is a wall coming down in my office today.  We moved once 2 years ago to accommodate our size, and today there is a wall coming down so that we can continue to grow (the store next door went out of business).  We are hiring staff and making money.  In every meeting I attend, there is talk of change and growth and how we can be better.  There is no mention of cutting costs or downsizing or layoffs.  It certainly looks like adult learners are choosing online to finish their degrees.

My husband works at a public school in special education, and his school is receiving stimulus money next year that will give him the help he has needed to help more students.  We are in our late 20s; we bought a house last summer, adopted a dog, and are enjoying our little life in our little town.  Everywhere I look, my life is unaffected by the recession.  Truthfully, if I did not watch the news or read your blog every day, I would not believe that there is a serious economic crisis going on.

The way that it has affected me is entirely emotional.  I have always been an extreme optimist, but this has shaken me.  Even though my job is secure, I worry every day of losing it.  Even though my husband and I can afford our home and have money in savings, I’m scared of losing it all.  I keep waiting for that “big event” that will make us one of the many who have lost their jobs or their homes or their savings.  I don't like spending money on anything non-essential and feel guilty when I do.  I just don’t trust this ease that is around me.  There is fear in the air and it’s contagious.  Even in my office, where things keep feeling better instead of worse, there is still a dose of worry.  I hear, “Well, I think my job is secure” a lot, and I think that is the biggest impact of this recession.  We don’t know anything anymore.  We don't feel safe anymore.

A reader writes (with perhaps an insight into why Obama's approval ratings keep ticking up):

I, like a lot of other rational people, worried about the effectiveness of the stimulus bill, but I'm not schooled enough in economics to have a truly informed opinion on the possible outcome.  What the situation with my brother has told me, in anecdotal form, is that for some people, it is working as expected.  Of course, anecdotes are one thing, systematic numbers are something else entirely, but still, it gives me hope (the enlightenment of my brother/sister-in-law is just icing for me.)

A reader writes:

While things could be a good deal worse, the recession has been hitting my household quite a bit already.  Last year my wife and I had our first child, a pure joy and blessing.  My wife had arranged with her employer to take six months of maternity leave.  Unfortunately, business dropped off so much that after five months the owner called her to say that they couldn't afford to take her back, at least in the foreseeable future. 

This might have been illegal (not sure), but we don't hold any grievance — its a small business that has always operated on a slim profit margin.  Her boss even gave her a nice severance payment (more than he could afford I'm sure).  My wife is very qualified in her field, but has been unable to find work elsewhere.

We've also been helping out my wife's parents quite a bit.  Her father's contracting work completely dried up a year ago and they are facing destitution having used up most of their saving.  She has three siblings that also want to help out, but one is out of work, and another is in financial shambles due to a disastrously bad home purchase a couple of years back.  Between the other sibling and us we pay their rent so they can live on their social security money. 

My father-in-law is desperately looking for a job — any job — to bring in something so they don't have to take our money.  They are proud folks and it really hurts them to be dependent on their children in this way.  My own father had planned to retire but his retirement accounts have been decimated and now he will have to keep working for at least a few more years.

My salary is enough for us to get by on but we can't really get ahead either.  I take a bus to work and leave her to get around in our 8 year old car.  We had planned to buy a house this year but there's no way we can take that plunge now.  With only one income and so many responsibilities we need to keep our savings in reserve and our extra obligations to a minimum. 

I had hoped to provide more for my daughter — she should have a nursery, a yard to play in, a better neighborhood.  Instead I come home to our little apartment and whisper my apology to her on the changing table we've crammed into our laundry room.  She smiles back at me, all jolly, innocent, and happy just to be alive and well, oblivious to our stresses and insecurities.

A reader writes:

I am a physician in the Portland area.  We are seeing more and more people unable to pay their bills.  Today I wrote off two patients' cost for a surgery.  Both mom and dad have lost there jobs, their insurance ends this month, and they are losing their house. You can't bleed a turnip. 

Colleagues have been cutting staff.  My office wants a raise but our revenues are way down. We feel keeping wages stable and not cutting hours is generous in this environment.  People can't pay there copays, many are opting out of surgery because of financial uncertainty, and hospital OR cases (the lifeblood of the hospital) are way down.  I have been busy filling out forms to try to get free medicines from the pharmaceutical company for patients who can no longer afford them.   It is getting ugly here.

A reader writes:

I'm a so-called stay-at-home mom who decided, pretty much on a lark, to apply for temporary Census 2010 work this spring. (The Census is going door to door verifying every address in the country in advance of the decennial census next year.) It's been an eye-opening, and depressing, experience.

I ended up supervising a crew of about 15 people. Some were terrific workers — there are always a few, I guess! — and I don't imagine they'll stay unemployed long, even in this difficult economy. But many, from my observation, were barely capable of holding on to even this temporary work. Of course, that didn't stop them from thinking the government owed it to them. When work started to wrap up earlier than anticipated, some were hostile, and others shifted into an undeclared slowdown in an attempt to eke out a few extra days.

In the meantime, at our city's central temporary Census office, competition was fierce to impress higher-ups from the regional office, in the hopes that permanent jobs might materialize. Supervisors above the crew level pushed relentlessly to increase production, upping quotas, urging us to fire people who couldn't keep up. We were told we could not work overtime, but without more hours we couldn't meet the goals that were set.

Most crew leaders I knew ended up working unpaid overtime, because they were bullied into it. We heard stories of people in the office being fired for doing the same. Given a goal they could not meet, but fearing they would be fired if they did not meet it, they accomplished their work, only billed for the maximum 40 their supervisors allowed, and subsequently were fired for lying on their timesheets.

Because people are so desperate for work, no one complained on the record. There was no one to complain to. I couldn't decide which annoyed me more: those who wanted to earn money for doing inferior work or those who were so desperate for permanent assignment that they abused their workers. And, of course, there was the ridiculously incompetent bureaucracy to navigate. Because so many temps were hired on the fly, efficiency was terrible. All the endless forms we had to fill out regularly got lost. No one ever knew what was going on. We got conflicting procedural instructions on a daily basis.

 My take-away: We may need immediate government stimulus, but we need to stop pretending the government can get good work done rapidly. Watching government money slosh around this bureaucratic microcosm has convinced me that "fast," "government" and "quality work" are completely incompatible. But hey, the extra cash is coming in handy!

A reader writes:

I am a 26-year old college graduate currently working as an assistant English teacher in Tottori, Japan.  My job mostly consists of entertaining junior high school students, for which I get paid almost 40k a year. Even though the recession has hit Japan pretty hard, it hasn’t affected us too much out here in “inaka” (the countryside.)  I have it far better out here in Japan than many of my friends back home in the States.

Health insurance is mandatory for Japanese residents, thus they have a national health insurance option for those who are unemployed.  I’m on the “social health insurance” program, because I’m technically a civil servant.  Despite being a bit pricey, about $300 a month for me, I’ve never had to worry about my personal health since I arrived here.  Last year I had a 39 degree fever (over 102 degrees Fahrenheit) and the doctor’s visit and medications cost me about $60.  I was in the waiting room for less than fifteen minutes.  For what we pay, the quality of health care that my friends and I have received has been outstanding.

So it surprised most of them when I decided to come home in August and not re-contract for another year.  Even though I absolutely love my job, and common sense tells me that I’d be a complete idiot to give all this up, I feel like I need to get on with my life.  I want to go to grad school and get my masters degree, and I want to be there for my family, whom I’ve missed terribly for the past two years.  I also have a wonderful boyfriend who’s been more patient and flexible than I could have hoped for.

I have to admit, I’m almost scared shitless about coming back to the U.S, from what I’ve heard on the news and from people back home.  One of my little brother’s friends from high school recently hanged himself after losing a number of jobs and moving from couch to couch for the past couple of months.

Nonetheless, I’m going to be optimistic.  I’m healthy, I have no debt whatsoever, and I’ve managed to save a decent amount of money.  I have it much better now than my mother did when she was my age.  She came to the U.S. by herself from communist Romania, unable to speak English and with barely any money.  Today she has a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the University of Chicago, and is now very comfortably retired in a house that is completely paid off.  We really do live in a great country.  If she can pull it off, I don’t see why any of us can’t.

A reader writes:

I arrived on these shores 17 years ago with $2.35 and a college scholarship. I studied like my life depended on it (because, in a way, it did), and my work paid off. I'm now a software engineer with 2 BS degrees and an MS. Having emigrated from hell (ok, maybe not quite hell — Nigeria — but definitely hell-adjacent), I know first-hand what it is like to live in a society without an economic safety net. I had gone to bed many times with unresolved pangs of hunger. I wasn't going to take a chance that it would ever happen again.

I worked and saved carefully. Pinched pennies, dined on Ramen noodles and turned down the thermostat in the winter. My house has always been the smallest among my colleagues and my car is over a decade old. So, what did I do with all this money I scrimped and saved? Well, I put 70% into real-estate and 30% into retirement accounts. Big mistake. Huge!

To be clear, I have never flipped a single house. I stayed away from it because it clearly looked like a get-rich quick scheme. Instead, I purchased single family houses and apartments. Nothing flashy, just basic homes. I live in the Midwest, so we have very few multi-million dollar condos here anyway. When a few "For Sale" signs popped up, it was barely anything to take note of. But when the signs started rusting, attention begged to be payed.

Now those houses are in foreclosure and the signs are everywhere. Many are already boarded up to keep out vagrants. I owe more on most of my properties than they can be sold for because similar houses are being auctioned off at a fraction of what I paid. My girlfriend still thinks I'm loaded. I have no idea what she'll say when she realizes that the sacrifices won't bear any financial fruits.

I don't think I did anything but follow a tried-and-true path to investing. My conservative approach would have probably paid off at any other time in the history of this country. In the past 10 years I have never been without 3 jobs — my standard 9-5, a software consulting gig and a teaching gig at my friends software training firm. My 9-5 is relatively safe (thank goodness), but my software consulting gig has been cut from 12 hours a week to 3 hours, and my friend's training business is circling the drain. Ironically, now that I most need to, I feel I don't have the strength to abuse myself like I did the last decade.

In January, I took some money out of what was left of the carnage and went to Las Vegas. After seven years without a vacation, I felt I owed something to my battered state of mind. Disillusionment is the appropriate word for my current condition. If I had been profligate, at least I would have the memories. It's hard to muster the discipline to save again. It was difficult (horrendous even) to work an average of 75 hours a week for over a decade. It stings to realize that it was all for naught. I just might go back to Vegas again. At least while I lost money there, I got drinks and — from what I can remember – had a heck of a time.

A reader writes:

I was glad to hear that nice young person was doing all right in spite of the recession. It just goes to show you what a person can do with education, hard work, and a family rich enough to have cousins in Singapore, weddings in Paris, Mitzvahs in SF, graduations in NYC, and connections to land jobs with a pro sports organization in the Pacific NW. Come on. I mean, he isn't a jerk about it or anything, but filing that guy's life under 'recession' is verbal gymnastics on a par with 'enhanced interrogation'.

Another adds:

Did you notice the irony of your emailer who works for a green car sharing company now planning to take several frivolous long distance airline flights just because they're cheap? I'm not some eco-warrior advocating that we all use our bikes to cross the country, but it made me wonder how committed he is to his cause…

Another:

Reading the chipper stories from your readers who are having a "good recession" are progressively driving me insane. I've been out of work for almost four months now.

As a contractor, I didn't qualify for any sort of unemployment; I'd carefully put aside more than enough money for taxes, but on April 15th I pretty much got wiped right out. I was paid really pretty well for a year, but I relocated for this job and had a lot of initial expenses that dug into savings. I don't have the deep network here to handshake my way into a new job, and my usually-stellar CV isn't even getting phone calls (most of my work experience is overseas). And frankly, I have now officially hit panic time.

I notice that lots of your readers writing in are the survivors of staff cuts, or people who managed to take a pay cut instead of a layoff. And a few recent ones chatter about taking loads of trips now that the prices are right, or saying that even if they do get laid off, they've got savings that will last them through. Each and every one of those people should be taking a good, hard look at their financial situation and making a realistic assessment, because I also thought that I was in a good position. I was unlucky enough to be one of the first layoffs at my company, and I am ruing all of the spending I did last autumn, because it's coming back to bite me. Healthcare costs, taxes, rent, phone, electricity, all those little things add up, and all it takes is one unexpected expense and you're toast.

So all of you lucky people who managed to survive the cull, congratulations. From what I hear and am experiencing, we're not out of the woods yet. Don't waste your good luck by being stupid with your money. I'm 30 years old and haven't been out of work for more than a month since I was 18. I never, ever expected to be in the position I am now.

A reader writes:

You recently posted a recession view about the line of 60+ people on Ventura Blvd in Los Angeles. I was in that line, waiting for two hours to be interviewed on the sidewalk by a group of 22 year olds running a burger joint. I’m a 47 year old man, single without health insurance, trying to cobble together enough money each month to pay my rent and food, working to get my way back to where I was ten years ago. Ten years ago, I was a sales manager for a furniture manufacturing company, making $10,000 a week, travelling around the US, succeeding wildly. The company I built during the 90s is now gone, a casualty of cheap Chinese furniture imports.

I’m working to save enough money to get out of California. Retail business is very close to zero. For lease signs on commercial buildings are more prevalent than operating businesses, and every single one of my friends is going through traumatic economic changes, none for the better. The reaction by the California legislature is “Hike up the taxes. We need more revenue.”

People are leaving the state in droves, seeking out low-tax, low-regulation places to live. There are exurban neighborhoods which were seriously overbuilt during the past twenty years that are depopulating now. The people who moved to these places moved to purchase lower-priced homes. They were the most economically strained and the first to lose their homes. It could take decades for many parts of California (and overbuilt Florida) to recover.
 
My political views have been aligned with yours for many years, though I can not be a supporter of Obama. I fear the spending and bailouts are digging us much deeper into a hole, throwing good money after bad, exactly the same as the Bush administration did with overspending. I am gay, HIV positive, Libertarian in theory but registered Republican. My disenchantment with the Republican party came within the first few months of the Bush administration, when it was co-opted by Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld. All the sensible moderates – Whitman, Thompson, Voinovich, etc – were excised from power, replaced by those who made decisions based upon religious dogma.

A reader writes:

For me, the recession is going pretty well so far. I am 24, college-educated and have a full-time job working for a car sharing organisation—a new, green job in an industry that is mostly recession-proof and growing. I don't live extravagantly, but I don't want for much, and I work for a non-profit, so I'm not getting rich. The best part, however, is that I have a bit of travel planned this summer, and airfares are dropping like a rock—the planes must be empty.

Last fall, when oil was still high (and I like it that way, it is good for my business) it looked like I might have to pick and choose which trips I could afford. Now, without breaking the bank, I am going to get to my sister's graduation in New York, a wedding and bat mitzvah on separate weekends in San Francisco, a series in Seattle where a buddy from college works for the Mariners, and, oh yeah, a family wedding in Paris. For my folks on the East Coast, airfares cross-country are down near $200—one example of fares lower than any time in the last ten years. I might take a weekend jaunt to Boston to visit because, heck, it's a hell of a lot faster and cheaper than driving.

So, for a twenty-something with no major long-term obligations, a steady job, no major debt (I learned well from my parents: pay your credit card in full every month) and some savings, the view from my recession is looking pretty good. If I lose my job, I have savings to get by for about a year, and, frankly, there are a lot of things I'd rather be doing than sitting in a cube 40 hours a week. Heck, next spring the family is planning a trip to visit cousins in Singapore, and I can afford that. Then I might take my savings, quit my job, and hike the Pacific Crest Trail.