Posted on 11/22/2008 7:53:40 PM PST by mathwhizz
“You just sit and you worry,” said Pat Weber, a construction administrator in Fennville who was laid off more than a year ago. “In the last year, I’ve put in for more than 100 jobs. I stopped counting after 110. It’s just so defeating.”
All around Fennville and its neighbors here in southwest Michigan, front lawns are peppered with for-sale signs and merchants complain about slow days. But while this remains a beautiful place with none of the obvious blight of Detroit on the other side of the state, residents say the hardship beneath the surface is very real.
It is the same story in other parts of Michigan, as the state’s already entrenched recession — in at least its fifth year, according to economic experts — digs deeper as a result of the recent global financial crisis.
New data show the state’s unemployment rate crept up to 9.3 percent, almost three times what it was in 2000, and, along with Rhode Island, the highest in the country. Just last week, Herman Miller Inc., an office furniture company based in Zeeland, Mich., announced that it would eliminate or lay off 400 to 650 workers, many of them in western Michigan. SKD Automotive, an auto parts manufacturer in Jonesville, Mich., where it is the largest employer, indicated it would eliminate 300 jobs.
As a result of the steady job losses that began in the summer of 2000, 1.82 million Michigan residents, or close to 20 percent of the population, are now on some form of public assistance, including food stamps and home heating credits, a record for the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I offered to have him and his family come up here to Green Bay so that he could interview here, in Milwaukee, and in Chicago. But, he refused. He claims that relocation is impossible.
I am reminded of my Grandfather, who, when he came home from the War had to leave Tennessee and go to Chicago for a job.
Sometimes, relocation is the answer.
I lived through that scenario as a teen. My dad was laid off and moved half way across the country to work. He rented a dump, my mom and the 4 kids moved out of the house after it was foreclosed and moved into a similar dump. We were all 4 in private schools - that ended and we went to public. Mom worked two jobs, I was 16, I worked and gave my paycheck to my mom. My brother was 15, he made money by working at a pizza place under the table. My sister and younger brother who were 12 and 10 made money by standing by the grocery store and carrying groceries to peoples cars for tips. And we ate a whole lot of rice...and my mom had to put her pride aside and go on food stamps and take help from our church and relatives.
Tough? you bet - it was double tough, but it made all four of us hard and appreciative for every thing we ever had after that. I live in fear of that ever happening to me now and I guard my next egg zealously.
But, we got through it, one day at a time, sometimes more hungry than we wanted and missing our friends from our other school and embarrassed to go to the Salvation Army for help and clothes ..... but we got through it.
It’s not “impossible”, but many things are difficult, as far as relocation goes. I don’t see much in the way of a “recession” or “depression” here in Dallas/Fort Worth: Restaurant parking lots are full every night, expensive cars are the norm, construction is ongoing, new businesses are opening and the want ads are page after page. Most companies have “help wanted” signs still in their windows, and the malls are full.
I wrote 108, but it doesn’t say what you quoted.
***It’s easy to sell when someone is buying. Here in MI we are not selling, we are abandoning. Thanks for all the empathy there.***
So? What we could not sell at auction we abandoned also. The purpose was to get enough cash to get us there.
“Cutting government spending? Cutting the gold plated salaries, benefits and pensions of government employees? Laying off government employees? Reducing regulations?”
Yeah, you said it. She’s going all over the flippin’ world trying to “bring business to Michigan” but she’s not doing anything here to promote small businesses, like, oh, cutting taxes, maybe?
It’s her fabulous regulations that drove me out of the job I had done for 14 years. There was no grandfather clause for those who had already been doing that job, so I was left with nothing to do but go back to school.
And there’s no way to sell our house because it’s lost value and no one is buying houses here so looking in another state for work has not been an option.
I don’t live on the east side and I really hate the fact that they carry elections every time. I really feel like I have no voice at all.
Sorry, I think it was to the post above yours.
>>What we could not sell at auction we abandoned also.<<
The HOUSE?
Right, yeah, okay....
My kids are 10 and 8.
You barely have a high school education, your job consisted of being a press operator or spot-welder, or hi-lo driver or sanitation worker or etc........ your period of employment was 1984 - 2008 and you are only in your early 50's..........Thats what your resume is going to look like.
So tell me, what does this individual have over any local person looking for a job in say, Bum Funk Texas or Arkansas or Utah or Louisiana?
I was not commenting on the difficulties of selling a home in Michigan. I was commenting on people who want to create additional reasons why something can’t be done and thereby convince themselves that it’s absolutely impossible. Wallowing(to become or remain helpless) is not harsh as I’ve known many who slip into it without realizing it. Do not for one second belive that Michigan has some monopoly on “difficult times” as many of us have been through them.
Yes, but it is way too hot in summertime.
He'll work harder for less money!
This is a thread about MI. People from MI are here telling it like it is. No one is asking for a cent from you. No one is asking for a bailout. We know what we have to do, no one needs to tell us and we WILL do whatever that is without you defining what I am, nor your crappy advice.
It gets really old to hear how freakin easy this all is, while we sweat our futures and you sit all nice and cozy in front of your PC. Added to that how this is all our faults because WE voted in Dems.
Well I didn’t. And I didn’t ask to have to lose 160,000 on my house.
Shove off. And a Merry Christmas. Hope you get just as much sympathy with every single crisis that every befalls you, your parents or your children. Cause what goes around comes around, my FRiend and sometimes all another person needs is a little “atta boy” instead of a puff to your own ego.
Trying to uproot them would be cruel and something that I have vowed not to do.
We are getting by ok without moving. We would do better elsewhere financially but family is worth more then the extra income. So here I stay.
You are so right. I lived in Texas for twenty years. Texans are super friendly. They will welcome you with open arms and treat you as if they’ve known you forever. I made wonderful friends there.
Hi Netmilsmom!
I live in Warren.
Unfortunately it’s easy for everyone from the other states to pile on everyone in a state with a liberal Democrat governor that went for the Democrat candidate in the Presidential election. Now I know how the FReepers in California must feel!
But really, I think this kind of division of writing off everyone in a state that went blue helps the “other side” more than our side.
I agree with you on the current situation in real estate / selling your house at anything near enough to just break even if no one is buying.
In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to sell the house a few years ago, keep the money and rent a house or apt, (also cash out the 401K even if taking the early withdrawal distribution tax penalty and keep the cash on hand or in savings accounts) but who knew then?
Exactly what to do know is a really a tough choice. I guess I’ll have to figure out at what point I’ll lose the house anyway, and stop paying the mortgage and save up the cash six months from that...
I’m not going to wait until my savings accounts and cash are all zero to move - I figure it is best to go on a job-hunting vacation to some of these other wonderful states and just abandon the house and leave with some cash in my pocket and what I can carry in the two vehicles...
Fortunately, I am a long way from that (I am still working at Chrysler - for however long I have a job there). But if things go on and on and get worse and worse, it could get real interesting with a lot of people with no jobs, no savings, and no place to live.
Oh really? What makes you think the local unemployed resident who is in the out of state area won't do the same?
“It gets really old to hear how freakin easy this all is, while we sweat our futures and you sit all nice and cozy in front of your PC.
Well I didn’t. And I didn’t ask to have to lose 160,000 on my house.
Hope you get just as much sympathy with every single crisis that every befalls you, your parents or your children. Cause what goes around comes around...”
I live in the New Orleans metro area. I know a little something about difficulties. And I know that creating artificial reasons(Texans won’t like us) about why something can’t be done doesn’t get one’s life in order.
Last year Jennie's answer to a huge budget deficit was to raise everyone's taxes and fees. She just could not find anywhere in the state budget to reduce spending. This plan was supposed to fix the states budget crisis.
Of course, the state took in less money and the state has another budget crisis looming. I guess its time to raise taxes once again.
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