According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than 31 million people currently unemployed — that’s including those involuntarily working parttime and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one.
In the face of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression, millions of Americans are hurting. “The Decline: The Geography of a Recession” is a vivid representation of just how much. It’s an interactive map I created as a graduate student at American University, Washington, D.C. Watch the deteriorating transformation of the U.S. economy from January 2007 — approximately one year before the start of the recession — to the most recent unemployment data available today.
Mass job losses, lost income, default mortgages and shrunken savings have a lot of people tightening their budgets. But does that mean your wardrobe has to suffer, too? Of course not! At least not until you’ve tried shopping second hand. Take a look!
As a journalist, I’ve covered my share of uncomfortable stories. I’ve interviewed families of murder victims, rape victims, human trafficking victims, recovering drug addicts, gang members, etc. The look of despair and hopelessness in their eyes was always unsettling. Oftentimes, I carried their stories home. Many of them remain with me today. Stories like that are pretty hard to let go.
So, when my boss asked me back in April to fly to Wichita, KS, to cover a story about some 2,000 (yes, 2,000!) people being laid off from a local aerospace company, I thought I was more than prepared for what I was about to see and hear.
LaToya Egwuekwe is a journalist with several years experience as a political reporter, television anchor and producer in Cleveland, Ohio, and Tallahassee, Fla. She currently works as a labor writer in Washington, D.C., where she is able to cover her two favorite topics: the economy and politics.
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