It's an election year and no one wants to admit it, let alone talk about it, but the reality is that the employment outlook is not pretty. Since early last year unemployment has been steadily rising and shows no signs of slowing down - regardless of what the politicians want us to believe. Oh, and if you think that unemployment can't go much higher than it is already, then look at the included graph as a comparison against what it used to be during this decade's first recession.
Unemployment, for the sake of unemployment, sucks. What makes this picture that much worse, however, are all the other factors that are still mounting an attack on the lowly consumer. Rising fuel costs; rising food costs; falling home prices... maybe worst of all, rising consumer debt. You can't really blame people for drawing on their lines of credit to make it through the tough times, but I'm sure that you too can guess what will happen when the cost of credit begins to rise as it is expected to do in the coming year. All that debt will suddenly become increasingly expensive leaving everyone scrambling with even fewer options to cover their living expenses.
The picture is gloomy, I know. It doesn't need to be as bad as it is though. The most important thing that people can do is to recognize the true state of the economy and act accordingly. Yes, it's time to cut-back on spending and increase savings for those sure-to-come rainy days. Every business owner knows that to survive the troughs you need to lower expenses along with falling revenues; it's just too bad that not every person has the same business know-how to make similar adjustments in their personal finances.
No comments:
Post a Comment