FAMILY LIFE IN THE RECESSION : Staying Afloat : Hard times are here, and money is tough to come by. This could be you. : Rethinking, Retraining After Job Picture Changes
Frugality seems to be the byword. Whether they’ve lost their jobs and had to tap their savings to stay afloat or have simply trade dinner and a movie out for staying home with a pizza and videos, many Orange County families are being forced by the recession to downscale their lifestyles. The lingering economy slowdown, now officially in its 22nd month, has disabled the Orange County economy more severely than that of any other county in Southern California, according to a recent economic report by Cal State Fullerton. Even those who haven’t experienced layoffs, cutbacks or long unemployment lines have been sobered by the times. It’s the painful morning after the free-wheeling buy-now-pay-later binge of the 1980s and it’s causing many families to rethink their priorities.
As a machine designer who has worked through temporary agencies for the past 20 years, James Jones did not expect any job to last forever. “When the job is over, you say, ‘Hey, guys, it’s been nice,’ and you report back to your agency.’ ” That’s exactly what James, 51, did last June when his last job--a temporary position that lasted five years--finally ended.
But this time, he was in for a shock.
“I found out there were no other jobs out there, that we were in the middle of a big recession,” he said. “I had no idea it was anything near as bad as it was.”
In the past, James had been able to find a job within a couple of weeks, so he wasn’t too concerned. His wife, Paula, who is a respiratory therapist at UCI Medical Center in Orange, was equally unconcerned. “It took about a month before I started to worry,” she said.
Fortunately, James had been working as much as 15 hours a week in overtime over the past four years, so the couple, who have two adult children, had a “little cushion” of about $15,000 to fall back on.
Because Paula was employed, “it wasn’t like I had to find something right now, “ said James, who would not find another job until January, 1992. “I was looking, but I wasn’t really worried about it until a couple of months went by and it became obvious that drawing-board people like myself were fast becoming dinosaurs and being replaced by computer people.”
Indeed, James said, “the one thing that seemed to have kept me out of work for such a long time is that during the last five or 10 years that I had been on long-term jobs, the industry has almost completely gone to computer drafting and computer design.”
In November, James enrolled in a computer training program through the Orange County JOBS PLUS Marketing program, which provides training and employment opportunities for unemployed and displaced workers. Through the 300-hour, four-day-a-week computer class, he said, “I learned to do what I’ve been doing for 20 years on a computer.”
Although the agency has a placement service, James found his own job in January. He’s now working for an engineering firm in Riverside and earning about $3,300 a month, about 40% less than he was making at his last job. And like that job, this one is temporary.
“I’ve made a good living out of the temporary stuff,” he said. “I’m not afraid of continuing to do temporary work.”
During the seven months James was out of work, the Joneses had to scrap plans for a landscaping project, and ideas about any “nice vacations” had to remain on hold. But, James said, “I’ve still got my house. We didn’t have to refinance or do anything else.”
Nevertheless, their savings account dropped from $15,000 down to the point where, James said, “I was looking ahead and saying, ‘Hey, about three or four more months of house payments and I’m going to be flat broke.’ ”
Said Paula: “I think we managed very well, really. It was getting to the point where we thought, ‘If this goes on much longer, we don’t know what we we’re going to do,’ but it didn’t get to that point.”
Between the two of them, the Joneses had been making about $105,000 a year. Last year, their income dropped to about $60,000. If things continue the way they are now, James said, their combined income for this year will be between $70,000 and $80,000.
But although James is working again and Paula feels secure in her job, the recession remains a concern.
“You never know,” Paula said. “He could get in this situation again.”
INCOME FOR 1991: $60,000 combined
MORTGAGE PAYMENT: $1,650
MAJOR EXPENSES: None
CAR PAYMENTS: None
INVESTMENTS: None
SAVINGS: Less than $5,000
RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS: Two IRAs
