The “Economic Downturn” From the Ground View

Posted by Lorren on November 12, 2008

I’ve been about the economy a lot, so I’ve been trying to pay attention to how it is affecting other people. We’re technically not in a recession yet… or it can’t be declared a recession until after December at least, since the economic data for 2nd Quarter ‘08 indicated a slight expansion. Despite what the technical data says, things aren’t looking too great.

Things are actually doing okay for us right now. Dh just got a second job, plus he’s going to school full time. His first job is a start-up, so the pay isn’t actually guaranteed and it’s not operating in the black yet. The second job he got is a writing job, and he’s pretty talented in that department (majoring in writing, might graduate summa cum laude, and is also a published novelist), so we figure that as long as the company stays solvent, they’ll more than likely fire the people without talent first; in fact, the company was hiring in order to replace people that they got rid of because they couldn’t write well.

Even though our economic situation is okay, the downturn affects us all in different ways. I’ve noticed that my daughter’s gymnastics class only had 11 children in the gym on Monday, and there were probably around the same amount on Friday. It seems like there were a lot more kids there this summer. My parents have been bowling in the same league on Friday nights since I was in middle school… last Friday was the first Friday that they did not have a league… it folded after all but 4 of the teams quit in the last month or so.

Another mom in gymnastics said that they might have to lay off about 40% of one category of workers at UPS… can’t remember which. People just aren’t buying as many packages.

I know many people that have lost jobs; dh lost a few in the last year and a half. We all know that many people have lost their homes… we lost ours, but that was due to a fire.

Traffic on the roads has seemed a little lighter recently as well. Not sure why, perhaps fewer people are out returning from work?

The economic downturn has effected people in many different ways, and not just in this country. China is considering their own economic stimulus package. I’ve met (online) people from Australia who said that things are not as good, as well as people in Europe.

So how is it effecting your friends and family? Feel free to comment.