Dashed American Dreams

Today my husband, a highly competent and reliable professional, joined the ranks of the unemployed. He signs up for unemployment benefits tomorrow, having arrived at the local unemployment office too late in the afternoon today (mid-afternoon) to make it to the head of the line. The unemployment office in this county is evidently doing a booming business. I have been under-employed for some time--mostly out of choice for personal and family reasons--but I am now applying for full-time jobs so as to more adequately support my family in this difficult time.

We have become a part of the depressing stream of statistics one reads about in newspapers and on blogs.  In her article at the Huffington Post, Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, lays out some of those shocking statistics:

• "One in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed, or just plain out of work."
• "One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards."
• "One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure."
• "One in eight Americans is on foodstamps."
• "More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy each month."
• "The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings....and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street."

The middle class is suffering while Wall Street and bankers took handouts from the government (paid from our pockets) and now are making money once again, paying back the debt they borrowed and acting as if they are now free from any responsibility for the economic crisis.

My family is doing better than many Americans in our situation. We began taking care of financial debt as soon as the economy began to tank and started economizing around our household. We had long-term financial plans in place years ago--but as two adults who are unemployed and underemployed with two college-aged children, we now are facing the possibility of those financial plans failing. Oh, yeah, and what about health care? As Republicans unite to stall the health care debate, Americans are losing their access to adequate health care as they lose their jobs.

There is every reason to believe that we will recover, that my husband will be employed again and that I will find an interesting and challenging full-time job when our last child goes off to college. But this is not a given. I work with young people just out of college who are having a very difficult time finding full-time work in their chosen professions. One young woman, a psychology major and a recent graduate of an excellent liberal arts college, has applied for jobs ranging from holiday retail staff to parole officer. She sends out two to four applications every week while holding down a part-time job that offers no benefits. Other college-educated people with whom I work cobble together two or three part-time jobs in order to make ends meet.  And we see more and more of the recently laid off on our college campus, anxious to update skills in order to be more competitive in a distressfully diminished job market.

Sitting here, now, at this keyboard, I can count my blessings....as I have been trying to do since last week, but I also have a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, that hollow feeling of anxiety that whispers, "What if?  What if one of you gets really ill? What if things don't work out the way you hope?" The economic news does not inspire confidence. We've been without jobs before, but we were younger, and the economy was better. As Elizabeth Warren notes:

Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety. Paying for a child's education and setting aside enough for a decent retirement have become distant dreams. Tens of millions of once-secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, watching as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pink slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff.

And now....back to composing that cover letter and updating my vita.