Talk To US: How Has The Recession Affected Your Family?

The financial crisis has had a profound effect on communities around the world. The International Labor Organization says worldwide job losses could reach 50 million by the end of 2009. As more and more people lose their jobs, families have had to make tough decisions on what to do and where to cut back.

How has the global recession affected you and your community? Have shops around you closed? Are bills piling up? How is your family's life different?

Show us and tell us about the changes in your life in a short video and post it as a response to this question. The most creative and compelling videos will end up on the Worldfocus TV broadcast and on the Huffington Post.

This is your chance to have a conversation with Americans about the economy and how it has changed your life.

Go to the Talk to US YouTube channel to upload your video. See it here:

Deadline: February 28

About Talk To US: In a partnership with WorldFocus and GroundReport, our Talk to US initiative invites people around the world to share perspectives on and help us shape international news.

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Comments

[fleaba]

I have been trying hard to fight this victim thing, but sometimes it just gets to be too much.
Was in the middle of a great year self-employed recruiting engineers and architects, I had paid my dues for two previous years and was finally doing okay when the construction industry tanked. Nothing big about 42K gross. Haven't made a placement for 8 months. I find a candidate and then the company says they are on a hiring freeze. My husband, a painting contracto,r and I are both self employed, so no unemployment. We lost our healthcare (which was $800.00 a month), have to file for BK and have to borrow the money for that (totally absurd), will probably have to walk away from the house. We have lived through years of financial instability due to the fact that my husband owned a commercial fishing boat in Alaska and the price of salmon dropped so drastically about 10 years ago that the permit he bought for 250K was worth 30K. I think it's a testament to how much we wanted to pay back our debt that we kept working and trying. Well, it's too much. We are both hard workers, but I have no idea where I will be able to get a job where they don't check credit history. Also have a 14 year old daughter about to start high school and it just tears me up that she may not get to go to college.

[devanate]

Well, I didn't feel it too much until January 4th, when I was laid off and found that I am ineligible for unemployment benefits because I was a 1099 contractor. Suddenly, I am no longer able to send the $300 each month to my disabled mother who was depending on it and I'm struggling to figure out how to keep a roof over my families' head when rent is due in 2 days and I am completely penniless. For families like mine, relief cannot come soon enough. Literally.

Thanks Bush, for deregulating the markets for the robber barons to take everything.

[thevealchop]

The economy has made it difficult to find a job in my field (with two degrees) for the last decade, since graduating from college -- impossible for the last year. I've been unemployed for over one year -- not collecting welfare or unemployment either. I was lucky enough to land a job making $8/hr yesterday. It's income, but it doesn't solve most of the financial problems I'm in. It pays for food and rent. There's a major problem with America right now, and it's hard to not take all of this personally.

[SangZe]

I've become more and more cynical about government, and more depressed.

[adv2int]

I have been selling candy at my high school since my Junior year and it has been paying really well, unbeliveably.

I worked at target in September but I was laid off after the month was over, which forced me to go back to the candy selling business. I now have 2 peopl working for me and I make $80 a week in profit that goes in my pocket and my partners get their share as well.

The economy has effected my family, but not in a way that we cannot manage. With a few cutbacks and me helping out and providing for some of my needs and wants I give my parents a extra hand with getting by.

[mmgbizgirl]

My sister passed away nearly two years ago and her young adults (barely in their 20's) are suffering in a way I never had to experience. Poor as we were, if you put your mind to it, there was always an opportunity for a scholarship, pell grant or a decent job to help move you toward your goals as a young adult and that is what I did.

Poor young people today are competing with the most unlikely candidates for minimum wage jobs. College Graduates!!! The competition to get into Junior Colleges is also hard because so many more students are starting at a JC because families can't afford to send them to 4 year colleges because scholarships and loans have dried up.

It is unbelievably hard for them to exist. I help as much as I can and try to stay connected with them so they don't feel they are at this alone. When opportunity dries up, most young men inevitably end up on the wrong side of the law and I'm praying my sisters young people will stay the course to finding jobs.

In this economy the poor are DEADLY POOR and the most we can do is try to stick together because it is feeling more and more like we've been left afloat in the middle of the ocean with no help on the way.

[thevealchop]

I live in Denver, and the number of homeless begging on street corners has seemingly quadrupled in the last year and a half. It's overwhelming and saddening beyond words. There is a monumental divide between the poor and rich these days, and those with jobs have no idea what it's like to be without.

[Vern58]

In my case, prices for groceries and supplies for maintaining the household have gone up drastically while my salary has remained the same. Health Care, the field that both myself and my life partner work in is suffering badly, and the only way to put it right is the adoption of a socialistic idea of medical care.
My workplace, a county hospital that has been benightedly sold to a quite greedy for profit company is constantly pushed to offer more with less help. This idiotic idea is a totally bankrupt and doomed to fail.
My job is in an almost constant state of hell. You cannot expect human beings to constantly offer more with less resource and expect it to succeed. Too many patients+not enough hands=disaster. America needs to give up this love affair with free market capitalism when it comes to the health care sector. It is as simple as that.

[DianeGhil]

My son, a single parent, lost his job and might have to move back home with us. Our investments and 401K have lost about 60% of their value. We are retired but I am working, teaching part time at 2 online universities.

[daffey]

It’s been tough. I lost my job from layoff, though work right now as a freelancer (OK as long as there are projects to work on). Mostly tough for watching the money we had set aside for our kids go out the window, plus our retirement 401Ks taking it on the chin. But lifestyle, not too bad. We’ve always lived rather modestly. Though we both worked, we tried to live only on one income, taking advice my parents gave me when I was growing up. Back when we bought our house, due to a high credit rating, lenders tried to talk us into qualifying for bigger loans, and looking toward bigger houses. But we didn’t, and just took a small ranch house (ironically just down the block from one that our realtor tried to muscle us into taking that would have been a full 75,000 more). So while it’s hit us, like it’s hit everyone, particularly in terms of savings and retirement, overall our standard of living hasn’t changed much.

[NJShopGirl]

I lost my job a couple of weeks ago. What has made this really hard is that I thought at unemployment would kick in after at least two weeks. however, they "lost" my original claim, then said since I have employment between two different states that I would have to have a phone interview. Turns out the earliest they could schedule the interview is TWO MONTHS later. Yep, I have to go two full months without getting unemployment to help me. That doesn't even consider the fact that the state may STILL turn around and say that I need to back to the OTHER state I worked in. :-(

[FirstForty]

I retired 5 years ago when I sold a small software company. My payout was not massive, but enough if we were lucky. We were not. I had my money with a "Private Client" at a well known discount broker that had recently began to offer "Private Client" services. This wonderful advise included getting me into a fairly lage Lehman Bond and then putting all of the funds in one of my IRAs into a mutual fund tagged by them as "High Risk". Shame on me, but I thought I was getting professionnal money management.

I was told the broker's policy was "asset allocation". It will come back. When the money I lived off of was down 40% and my IRAs down 60% I told him I had enough of his "wealth management".

I have tried to get contact work but I found projects are cancelled at every turn and at my age just getting a job that does not offer an orange apron is going to be difficult. My home is for sale to reduce expenses but selling it is about as likely as finding life on Mars. I simply cant replace that money by W2 income even if I were lucky. If the stock market stays flat or down for years, I could envision bankruptcy. I have been fortunate up to this point, but for the first time in my life, I see all the doors in front of me closing. I have serious symptoms of depression.

[tnduffin]

My wife was laid off on New Year's Eve and given two weeks severence and one month of health insurance. She was a paralegal in the realty market. I am in school to be a paramedic and might have to drop out to continue to work and get health care for us and our son. Its hard but we survive, just like most every other American will do. That's how this has affected me.

[rkimball]

last month i lost 60% of my 401k. i was advised to leave it in there, the markets are coming back. i am now down 80%. same with my wife & i iras. i am semi-retired. my wife is retired. both of us will have to go back to full time work, probably untill we die. we can't sell our house to downsize & cut expenses.
property taxes just increased & senior citizens exept from school taxes must now pay because the city & schools are bankrupt. we may lose our home to back taxes. we are frightened of tomorrow.

[Samshade77]

I work in GA I make 40,000 a year. My girl friend lost her job at coca cola she was not able to pay her rent so she had to move in with me. I have a one bedroom condo her and her daughter. It has been so much stress on our relationship, not so much the money issue I make enuff to support us, it that she can not find a job. It hurts me as much as it hurts her. I know how it feels not being able to work when you want to work. I will have to sell my condo and find something bigger or rent it out and get a 2 bedroom. We might end up getting married because we have spent so much time together. I guess that is the only good thing to come out of this situation.

[thevealchop]

Good luck, brother. I know exactly what you're going through. I've had absolutely no luck finding work and because of that we've had to postpone our wedding indefinitely until I can land a job that pays AT LEAST what I made before, and that was mid 30k. Even then, there's debt mounting that might make the wedding we'd hoped for (nothing expensive or extravagant) impossible. It might have to be a civil union. The strain on our relationship has been unbelievable and the swings between hope and despair are killing us. I'm surprised we've lasted this long...

[johnsopinion]

The only way this situation has affected me is in my shopping habits for food, clothes and gas.
I still have my job and the company is growing. I still have money in the bank and it is also slowly
but steadily growing. I have a Visa with a 0 balance (only use for big ticket items and usually pay
off in 3 to 5 payments-or less).
I've found second hand stores also actually sell new clothes. They get the 'no-sell' left overs and
are priced at about 1/3 to 1/4 the retail price.
I've also found new (to me) grocery stores that sell products way below what my normal grocery outlet
asks, so now I shop two grocery stores instead of one.
I'm more conscious of who is asking what for a gallon of gas. I had fairly well settled on one national chain until they halted their downward price at $1.75 per gallon no matter what the price per barrel was dropping to. I guess they figured that was the bottom line for them so I found a place that offered gas at about $1.68, sometimes less.
Net effect........0 so far.
I suspect to run into problems later on this year when I put my paid-for house on the market. Getting out of the city and moving back to a small town. But, we'll see.