The U.S. has been in a recession since December of 2007. Many families have been severely affected. Some people have lost their jobs and fallen into debt.
According to the statistics, our economy has bettered, but we are yet to experience it.
The current unemployment rate for the United States is 8.3 percent of the population, which is 12.8 million people. This is a slight improvement compared to statistics from January, when the unemployment rate was 8.5 percent.
But the unemployment rate remains even higher for certain groups — the rate for African Americans is 13.6 percent and 10.5 percent for Hispanics.
Here are two stories of people that have been affected by the recession:
Leslie’s Story:
Before the economic crisis, my family was doing alright economically. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t suffering financially. We would go out to eat almost every weekend to places like Chuck E. Cheese’s, Shakey’s, Diana’s and El Mercardito. Whenever we would go to the stores, we would buy anything we liked. We would buy shoes, clothing, or toys for my little brothers. Almost every summer, we would go to a theme park as a family vacation like Disney Land, Knott’s, and Universal Studios.
Things started to change after my dad started working less days and less hours. My mom was a stay at home mom, but got a job for a couple of weeks until the factory shut down. My parents were only making enough money to pay for the bills and to buy groceries. We weren’t able to do the things we used to. We haven’t gone out as a family anymore. We do go out to eat but not as often as before.
Rolando’s Story:
My father was the only one who worked and we did very well financially. My family and I use to go out to eat every Friday. For Christmas and birthdays we would not be afraid to ask for what we wanted and we got it. We had enough money to keep the food on our table and keep ourselves happy. We never limited ourselves to what we ate or what we bought.
After the economic crisis began we stopped going out every Friday. Now we only go out when there is money left from all the payments.The amount of food we buy now has to limited. The type of food we buy has to be of a cheaper brand in order to save even a small amount of money. For the past few years I didn’t really asked for anything on Christmas or my birthday.
Asking my parents for expensive gifts is something I do not feel comfortable with. It does not feel like when I was 5 years old and I could ask for anything I saw or wanted. The recession has affected us at home in many ways other then just economically. Sometimes we get into arguments over money as we wait for us to finally feel that the economy has improved.
