Neighborhood Feels Recession
CBS
Transcript
when we talk about the economy and our current recession we use big long-established numbers the unemployment rate gross domestic product the Dow Jones average but ultimately those numbers affect people on a small scale in very real ways all across this country and that is the focus of tonight's weekend Journal as we entered 2010 a visit to one block in one American town to see how four families are coping I haven't seen fear like this about my in my entire lifetime Jen singer lives on an upper middle class Block in central New Jersey but these days six of her 15 neighbors are out of work we don't feel like the recession is over here on my street Jen is a freelance writer her husband Pete still brings home a steady paycheck but they're playing it safe this holiday season spending less and saving more what's to drink there's water there's water and there's water the other day I got a package it had some tissue paper in it I actually took it out and put it upstairs and thought my God I'm turning into my grandmother a few doors down the davins are down to one salary Brian Davin lost his job last spring Grace Davin works from home but with four college-bound kids in a hefty mortgage money is tight how much of this do the kids understand I I think the older ones really get it they end up buying their own school clothes this year with their own babysitting money without extra money for entertainment they're spending more time together at home chipping in on little chores like painting signs for Cub Scouts or creating a home theater it's turned into something fun that the kids have enjoyed we've done family movie Nights now and the kids love it they're like this is great you know can we do this again next week but the grinding reality is the job hunt is tough and a near Miss can really sting well it's hard to watch when you see your husband getting excited and and then he gets a phone call that it wasn't you know he wasn't Chosen and and you it's got to be disappointing for him and you feel for him nextdoor neighbor Bob schro saw his job loss as an opportunity after 28 years in Corporate America he dug into his savings and bought a toy store it's changed your job it's changed your family changed your marriage it's changed everything yes very much so it was a bold move especially since the layoff he says felt like a size event there was a a moment of a lot of disbelief on my part uh when it did happen and um after 28 years yes it's it's it's hard to believe and it really it rips your your soul out and it takes your identity away for a period of time Bob's wife Janet was a stay-at-home mother now she's still in charge of the house and kids and they should be any day but she's also a full-time partner in the business I have zero downtime zero time just for yourself I have no time for myself at all anymore you know any free time I have if my kids are awake I try to spend time with them because I have the mom guilt now across the street Aisha and Anthony lassio are both working but it's been a year of constant anxiety how you doing sometimes I find myself waking up in the middle of the night and wow what if this happens and that's when I have to calm down and just focus one day at a time I think back to my grandmother when I was younger I used to look at how she would pinch every penny she'd dilute the Soaps and I'm kind of starting to think in those ways now parenting will be less competitive if you can't afford to put your kid on the $5,000 ice hockey team that sends them to Canada every other weekend maybe that's a good thing our parents did this with twice as many children as we did or more and they they made it happen when you hear the stories of other families that are in much more difficult situations than you are you can't help but say you know what we can get through this the current unemployment rate is 10% most economists believe it will take 5 years before the economy returns to a normal unemployment rate of 5%