Ron

Ron, 57, has had to change careers to keep afloat during this jobs crisis. Formerly an IT professional, Ron is now a home inspector who makes less than half of his previous salary. The work provides less than 40 hours a week and has no benefits. Ron and his wife have depleted their savings and retirement funds to keep afloat financially.

My Story
As much as I loved working in the IT field, I don’t think it’s feasible for me to get back into the industry. After picking up scant amounts of contract work over the past two years, I feel like I’m too old for retraining because training in IT is so expensive and the financial compensation is about half of what it used to be.

So I’ve decided to try my hand at a new career in home energy inspection. Although the money isn’t great and I don’t have benefits, I hope there will be a future in this field for me. After losing my job, it was unbelievably scary to realize that I had to start over with nothing. But that’s exactly what you have to do to keep going.

It’s mind boggling how dramatically life has changed for my wife and me since I was laid off two years ago. We don’t go out any more, see movies or eat fast food. This was the first year I couldn’t afford to buy her an anniversary present—it was our 29th anniversary. Vacations are a thing of the past. I truly don’t believe that I’m ever going to be able to retire. We have gone through $240,000 of our savings and retirement in order to pay our bills ($200,000 was penalties and taxes).

As for health insurance, we watch our health carefully and use a lot of home remedies to avoid the high cost of health care. And we pray that neither of us needs surgery because that would completely wipe us out.

After 20 years of working at Kmart, my wife was forced into early retirement when the company started downsizing. Because of our situation, she went back to work part time at Jewel Osco on second and third shift, to help make ends meet. Her job provides health insurance for both of us, but it’s minimal at best. She needs glasses, an operation and dental work, but we can’t afford it.

Is this the message we want to send to our next generation? No matter how hard you work and save it all can be pulled out from under you at any time. I fought for this country, have faith in her and I truly believe that for this country to get back on its feet we need to start helping our own first and the rest of the world will follow.