Sure, I'm Better Off Than I Was 4 Years Ago. Better Off Than 12 years Ago? Not So Much.
That's the fact.
Yes, things have gotten somewhat better since bush left office and President Obama took over. But the fact is that I was doing a helluvalot better when Clinton was president. The fact is that bush's 8 years wreaked havoc on my family's finances.
Under Clinton, my salary increased eight-fold. Under bush, business dried up (I worked for a company that sold consumer products), companies closed, and I've spent the better part of the past 12 years going from marginal job to marginal job, with extended periods of unemployment between gigs that never seem to last more than 18 months.
Under Clinton, my services and skills commanded a premium salary in a job marketplace that favored employees over employers, where employers had to offer a real salary with real benefits to secure the services of a limited pool of skilled people. Since Clinton, companies in my industry have closed left and right, jobs are scarce and competition for the remaining jobs in the industry are fierce. The climate favors employers, who tend to look at employees as easily replaceable cogs in a wheel, rather than as talented assets or (gasp!) partners.
Attempts to move my skill set into other related industries has been a mixed bag, most likely because the challenges I've faced in my industry aren't limited to my industry.
So, yeah, I'm better off than I was 4 years ago. But everything is relative. The fact is that I'm nowhere near where I was when Clinton left office, and that's all thanks to the destruction wrought by Team Bush over their 8-year reign of error.
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