When Will We Recover From the Recession?

In April, Time Magazine did a telephone poll asking 1,000 people, "What is your best guess about how long it will take before the economy begins to recover?" Here's what they said:

Six months - 12%

One year - 26%

Two years - 24%

Three years - 9%

More than three years - 11%

Start of a long term decline - 14%

So what about you? What do you think?

Me, I tend to be in the 1-2 years camp. I am hoping for one year, but expect it will take closer to two. Of course some of this will go area by area. I heard something on NPR the other day where a pundit suggested that some areas (he used Florida as an example) were hit particularly hard by the economic situation because they were not expecting it, however, because they have very diverse economies, they are expected to recover fairly quickly. On the other hand, my home state had been sliding into an economic downturn for years before the rest of the nation felt it, and we aren't expected to recover nearly as quickly.

To be honest, I have only lightly been effected by the recession, which is pretty funny considering I write a blog called "Fighting Foreclosure." But as most of you long time readers know, my financial problems came from divorce. I still have my job and have been able to hold onto my property, but that isn't to say that the recession has completely passed me by. Long before the government started talking about bank bailouts, there was the housing bubble and its subsequent collapse. I bought my house at the peak of that housing bubble believing, as many did then, that "real estate always increases in value." Ha! In addition, I work in a field related to the housing market. I've seen our company shrink from 70+ employees to 12. Once upon a time we used to get profit sharing, but we haven't seen that in a couple years now. The company was always careful to let us know that profit sharing was never guaranteed, so fortunately I never relied on it exclusively, but I surely wished I had saved a lot more of it! Man, that money would be handy now.

I have seen several good friends hurt by this though...

I know quite a few people who have been laid off due to financial cuts made by companies. One of my friends, a full time employee, had two part time gals working for him. The company wanted to lay off the part timers, but instead my friend stepped in a offered to be cut instead. He saved both their jobs and is working on building his own business. I love stories like that - they give me hope.

I would like to see the economy turn around though. I think it is great that it is getting so many people to refocus their attention to what really matters in their lives, but I hate seeing folks needing work and not being able to find it. The silver lining of people paying attention to personal finance in new ways and companies running leaner and being more aggressive is great, now we just need employment to open back up.

What do you think? When do you think it is going to turn around? Have you been effected personally? Tell me your recession recovery thoughts!


Photo by: RogPool