Salon: How I Lost my Working Class Life

[LisaLynne]

http://www.salon.com/2010/04/12/five_kids_in_a_trailer/

I found this to be really interesting and sad. Of course, I know people (not necessarily here) will attack this woman for the choices she's made in her life, because it's always easier to blame the victim instead of facing up to the fact that life is extremely uncertain for all of us (even those she mentions at the beginning who have their relative wealth to fall back on could actually end up much worse off).

I think she's doing remarkably well considering the circumstances and must be an incredibly strong person, but the article is written with brutal honesty. I don't know how I would cope in a similar situation.

[pipoman]

1. people as a whole in the US

Live beyond their means imo. The result is if their good paying job goes away they can't take a low paying job and work their way back up..we have been careful not to fall into that trap. We drive old cars and bought a fixer-upper house that was livable and paid it off in 3 years. This allowed us to quit our good paying jobs we both hated and seek jobs doing exactly what we wanted to do for very close to minimum wage..now 6 years later we are almost back where we started income wise.

I hope this woman finds happiness and work after she sheds the tremendous pressure of over extension. .of coarse it would be great if there were still a labor party working for the masses..but alas the labor party is dead. .

[LisaLynne]

2. I didn't take that away from this at all. nt

[pipoman]

3. What part?

She spent her savings and retirement for a 5 bedroom house in Colorado and still ended up with a mortgage for what appears to be 3 people. I am guessing it was a very nice home. Maybe not. Job options increase for people who don't have huge debt.

[LisaLynne]

4. That part.

But you know, I do understand how it's much easier to continue to think that if you just make all the "right" choices in life that nothing "bad" will ever happen to you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. Bad stuff can still happen even if you make good choices.

But the downside is usually worse if you've made risky ones.

Even now;

For now, we live on my unemployment check. We haven’t applied for other benefits, reluctant as I am to complete the transition from middle class to certifiably impoverished.

Every problem is a math problem. Appearances don't have much value. life would be better for her family if she accepted food stamps and public assistance immediately.

Shit can happen to anyone, and some things you can't mitigate, but other things you can.

[LisaLynne]

10. Yeah, but too many people point to the "mistakes" that others ...

make and think, "Well, it's their fault for doing ..." insert "risky" choice there so that they can continue to feel superior, safe, and as though, in the worse sense, they don't have to help that person, because, hey, it's their fault.

[haele]

11. This was from 2010. She had four adopted children and a good paying job in Colorado in 2008.

I guess adopting children could be her first possible bad choice since she was single. Don't have kids if you can't afford them, after all - that's the classic conservative mantra.
But frankly, if we were all to follow that mantra religiously, no one but those making $250K or more a year would be able to justifiably "have children"... and even then, it would be sketchy because a bad divorce, health problems, or natural disaster or market crash can really screw you up unless you have over a couple million in accessible, liquid cash.
If you're making good money (environmental permitting is skilled professional work - easily gets one close to or over six figures) 5 bedrooms isn't a stretch to think about purchasing on a down-payment if you have four adopted kids - especially if you have one with health problems. You can even double up a few of the kids and make one of the five a spare guest bedroom or a home office. In 2005/2006 few people thought there would be a crash as bad as there was.

Second possible bad choice - leaving that established good paying Colorado job in 2008 for new job in California and moving your family there before you can sell your Colorado house because one of the kids has a heart problem that the higher altitudes in Colorado is making worse.

Third - and most critical - possible bad choice - "renting" that nice Colorado house out to a flaky friend rather than get a reputable management company that will ensure you get enough rent to continue to pay your mortgage on - or even eventually help find a buyer that would purchase it as an income property for the remainder of your mortgage even if it did "need fixing". (From experience - NEVER rent or sublet your property to a friend or someone you know who has fallen on "bad times" if you need the money.)

Fourth possible bad choice - Taking that California job without a lot of research into how stable that company might be, or widening out her options. Took her three months to get her severance pay, and by then, she was rock bottom.

I only hope she was able to get that good-paying job she was interviewing for in the article, that her kids are okay, and that she's been able to rebuild some semblance of normalcy. But employment for California in 2010 (even in the environmental sector) was pretty tough in a lot of places - and companies never like hiring those who were unemployed for more than a year or have been taking "make do" work if they were originally professional.

Haele

[kiva]

5. A suggestion to the OP -

Even though you don't have to use the same headline in GD, you might want to use the original "How I Lost my Middle Class Life"...that's really what the article is about, since a fair number of working class people are in circumstances not much better than the author's current life.

[LisaLynne]

8. Eh, sorry -- too late to edit I think

I think Working class was stuck in my head just because of that reason. But still, I don't think that mitigates her struggle though, does it? Because maybe she was clinging to middle class before?

[snot]

7. I've felt struck lately that

politicians and the media seem to be completely out of touch with how many people are really struggling financially.

[LisaLynne]

9. Yeah, it's like none of them have ever had to face ...

the reality that so many of us are in. Even if you feel as though you are doing pretty well, so little has to happen before you are in a really bad place.

I think that's the really terrifying point this article was trying to make and it seems people just don't want to see it.