I read a diary this morning that reminded me of my own experience during the Reagan years. This started me thinking about the difference between being broke then and now, and what we've lost; and why I come to this site.
I've kept a journal continuously since July of 1980. It lives in nine notebooks in a cupboard in my little office downstairs. I consulted the first book... and quickly discovered that there was a great deal that memory had lost or glossed over. Supposedly it was morning in America, but I was in no position to enjoy the dawn.
I was broke, and unhappily married, and I really didn't have an outlet other than to write page after page after page of angst. Factories, which had been the basis of our town's economy for forty-some years, were failing one by one. My then-husband was one of thousands laid off from our largest local employer and told not to count on ever being called back. I was a stay-at-home mom with a 3-year-old son. I knew I'd have to go to work, and with what was happening to the economy I figured that even if hub got another job it wouldn't be enough to keep us above water, so I'd better plan on working for the rest of my life -- and the clerical jobs I'd done before "retiring" wouldn't be enough. I got a guaranteed student loan and went to school at a nearby junior college.
I earned a 2-year Associate Degree in Data Processing in a year and a half, but that was a dicey time for all of us. We lived in a small, old "starter home" -- remember those? -- and drove a dilapidated old beater. It was just a part of daily life to know I might be out somewhere and find that the car wouldn't start when I went to go home. Then I'd get out the Coke bottle I kept in the back seat and beat on the battery posts with it. If that didn't work I'd remove the air cleaner and spray the carburetor with some aerosol stuff I had. If that didn't work, I'd walk.
No work was to be found for then-hub; there were too many unemployed, and anyway nobody wanted to hire a laid-off worker from that factory because "You'll just go back when they call you". We lived on unemployment. Back then, there was a safety net. Somehow there were Federal extensions and State extensions; always another extension when the previous one ran out. After the last extension, we lived on my student loan and our meager savings and my parents' generosity. I made arrangements to pay our (small) house payment interest-only to save money. I sold outgrown or unneeded clothes at a consignment shop instead of taking them to Goodwill as I had done before.
I found an internship at a database marketing company for my last semester, and when I started that job we had an income -- roughly the same as what we'd made on unemployment. Halfway through the internship the company offered me a full-time job, and I jumped at it; switched my remaining classes to evenings and happily went to work. I felt like I could start breathing again, after holding my breath for more than a year.
Writing this, I realize how much we as a people have lost. First of all, the safety net that held my family up while I studied. Secondly, student loans were easy to get. Thirdly, job retraining: good paying jobs were available and it was possible to go to college and become qualified for them.
Now it's my field that's being outsourced. I've worked in it for more than 20 years, and if I'm lucky I can make it to retirement. I'm not worried about myself, nor my present husband (who's already retired). I worry about the world our kids are trying to make their way in. I worry that all the hope and joy and possibility of making it has been sucked out of the world by the greedheads.
My only hope is that we can get it back somehow... and that's why I come here.