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A lot of people are suffering and struggling through the worse recession since the last great depression. All over the United States, Canada and abroad people are losing jobs, homes and wondering where their next meal is coming from.  Below is just one example of how the lives of the struggling are unfolding.

In San Francisco, Kevin Peterson (not real name), age 32, is starting his own search. The unemployed auto mechanic is waits in a cubicle at Career Link employment center in the Mission District, checking e-mail for responses to resumes he has sent out. “The job market is really tough,” he says. “It’s crazy. I can’t give up.” Peterson was laid off a year ago from his job and has been homeless since December. Before he was laid off, he had lived in Oakland with his wife and 4-year-old son and her parents, but he says they kicked him out when he wasn’t making progress looking for work. So he sleeps in his 1992 red car.Today, Peterson receives his first $422-monthly workfare assistance check, he washing city buses in the morning to help earn that. He also uses food stamps and $60 a month from the Army Reserve to scrape by. Peterson, now wearing a gray ARMY T-shirt, joined several months ago to boost his resume and receive job training. It is possible that he may be sent to Afghanistan within a year. He has given into the fact that he may be off to a warzone.

Peterson is far from alone. In March, the nation’s jobless rate rose to 8.5 percent — more than 13 million Americans. The recession, experts say, has eliminated more jobs as a proportion of the work force than any downturn since 1958. The crash in the housing market is partly to blame.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Job Related, Money, Personal Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.