Why might a suffering economy be good for the American people? Well, it might bring back a bit of sanity. As household budgets have tightened this year, many people and organizations have started looking more closely at how their money is managed. The need for a trip to Malibu or Botox for the occasion is being re-evaluated. Hopefully most will agree that at least a re-allocation of income from cosmetic surgery to, say, food might be a return to sanity.
As unemployment has hit a 16-year high and Wall Street shakes off tens of thousands of jobs, even upper-class Americans are starting to use the distinction of superfluous spending to describe unnecessary purchases. Affluent couples in the New York area are finding their families suddenly in flux. It’s not only the high-flying income and the attendant abundance that have evaporated. For these couples, it’s also the assumption of what their marriages would look like; the traditional model—executive husband and stay-at-home wife—is clearly out the window.
The current economic challenges are also pushing many people to go back to school and get qualified to work with updated models. Part-time working students and adults are seeking online enrollments as a cheap and easy solution to an uncertain future. The culture of jobs is also changing as now more and more Americans are now working either freelance or two jobs, with nearly one in two taking on these additional positions in the last six months. And, by and large, these new alternative workers are not low-income—they are college-educated Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year.
This economic downturn has allowed people to look towards the future with a clearer perspective of change, not only at home, but, more appropriately, with respect to the rest of the world. With a new administration coming into the White House, there is no doubt that a frenzy is cast on fresh faces joining the Obama administration. The Obama team is ready to start working on the challenges facing the country, including counter-terrorism, Gaza, Russia, and Iran. If anything, the state of the economy will force Americans to adopt a different, more conscious perspective for the New Year!
