Trading Down: Laid-Off Americans Increasingly Taking Pay Cuts - And Kissing Their Old Lives Goodbye

Not to mention the ripple effect it has on the overall economy:(

And bidding down they are. The community college about 20 minutes south of me (I am within an hour of 5 or 6 community colleges)was recently hiring several positions. All of them required masters degrees, some required certain certifications, most required certain skills and experience. The majority of these jobs were paying between $22,000-$29,000, including one job that required 10 years in the field and a masters! $29,000 is very low for a job out here, even lower than what a normal recent grad will get. You can't buy a house on $29,000, you really can't even rent an apartment with that either unless you have a roommate.

Yes, this article is spot on! Most of the examples are individuals in their fifties, duh? This is our new reality and reality bites! Everyone is sliding down the career ladder and between all the myths and stigma about unemp it is, more than ever before, an employer's marketplace and discounts on employees!

This just verifies my belief in all the waste of skills and talents that are out there. Especially the segement of the population that should be in their prime earning years and were instead caught by the tidal wave of unemp. The longer this vast gulf in the economy exists it seems to me that the 80% of society that were untouched are fine and can not even fathom what problems the other 20% are having just to struggle forward. Sometimes just to live is an act of courage! (famous quote - just don't remember who)

And those 80% are hunkered-down, working 6AM to midnight with no overtime pay, in order to save their jobs! Unfortunately, that's what people with no political clout need to do. If they get a heart attack or have a nervous breakdown, these greedy companies will just bring in someone fresh, a know-nothing twenty-something or a foreigner with a work visa, and pay them half of what the last person made.

I know. It seems from what I am hearing, that on average you take a job that was paying $70,000 3 - 4 years ago...its now being offered for about $35,000.
My Wife (a school teacher) and I are just hunkering down. As we also did in the years leading up to this mess, since this mess started for us a year ago when I got laid off. In preparation for what we knew may lay ahead. Have clamped down of course even futher in the past year since I've been out of work. No expenditures UNLESS absolutely necessary. Period. House items, unless its broken, wont get fixed or updated. Cars, the ones we have now, 2 Hondas, one 4 yrs old, the other 6...are going to have to last a LONG TIME!
And even if say I land a job tomorrow.....we plan to continue this way...just try to stash as much savings away from any money I am able to bring in. Because I am no fool to believe that if I do get a job, that it could last for just a very short time.
It seems that if you prepared for this, its the ONLY chance you have had of surviving of it. Even that is no guarantee, but it gives you a fighting chance.
The very sad thing though, was we were planning to adopt domestically and start a family last year. That of course is very much on hold, and with each day that goes by, it seems less likely will ever happen.