The Debt Ceiling: What's Going on Under Your Roof?

The debt ceiling has been big news lately.  It’s part of the whole package of problems associated with economic troubles we have had in the U.S.  This week, let's discuss how our economy is impacting your family.  Has unemployment, shrinking credit lines or the overall recession hit your home?

Google Explorer provides a visual graph of unemployment rates, including NJ and Morris County here. In a nutshell, it shows that U.S. unemployment was at 9.7 percent as of June 2011, a bit higher than the U.S. overall, which was at 9.3 percent, while Morris County was faring better than most other counties in NJ, at 7 percent (in May 2011).

I would definitely say that unemployment has impacted our extended family.  Members of my family who are 50 years old and over have had the hardest impact, as quite a few have been let go, while others have been cut back from full-time employee to part-time (losing benefits in the process).

My father, a systems analyst/programmer from Morris County, lost his position, along with many of his coworkers, due to outsourcing of jobs.  He wound up in a program paid for by his previous company (a slap on the wrist by the government, I think) that pays for him to go to an accredited college in a degree program, while collecting unemployment. I’m sure he didn’t expect to spend his days writing research papers and trying to grasp the finer points of the American Psychological Association Style Manual, but this is his new reality.

So, has the economy impacted your family? Please share your thoughts.