She was in sales, huh?
Must have been a lousy sales(wo)man.
If you can really sell, a down economy doesn’t matter.
If she could really sell, she could sell herself into another job pretty quickly, and failing that, she could go into business for herself.
Oh, and get the hell out of New York.
The subject of the article should get out of NYC to live less expensively... The original poster may stay ;-)