People carry an average of about $46,000 in debt — mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and other consumer debt. That's a far bigger load than in 1982, when per capita debt totaled about $14,000 in today's dollars.
SHOOT: There are other differences too. Energy prices are higher now. Industries are over-saturated. And you can't run to your uncle's farm, something you could always do historically, but no longer.
Americans have more than triple the debt they had in 1982, and less than half the savings. They spend 10 weeks longer off the job. And a bigger share of them have no health insurance, leaving them one medical emergency away from financial ruin.
For these reasons, the unemployed are more vulnerable today to foreclosure and bankruptcy than they were a generation ago.
Donald Schenk knows. He's been without work both times. It's worse now, he says.
Back in the early 1980s, when Schenk lost his job at a phone company, he was able to find several temporary jobs — including one testing pinball machines — to make ends meet until he landed full-time work nearly two years later.
But now Schenk, 55, of the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Ill., has been seeking work for a year and a half after losing his information technology job. Potential employers aren't interested "if you are not a perfect fit," he says.
The unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October 15.7 million Americans are out of work |
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