Emotional Impact of the Economic Squeeze

The middle-class and the lower end of the wage scale are feeling the “squeeze” of this economic shift the hardest. As housing and health-care cost steadily rise at alarming rates, stress, depression and poverty has significantly increased among Americas middle and low-income workers. Less educated workers who lack marketable job skills will continually struggle to “make ends meet” due to having the hardest time holding onto their jobs and the toughest time finding new employment. Factors such as advancements in technology, cheaper foreign labor, and increased cost of living has left many Americans feeling stressed-out, over-worked, depressed, and in a mind-state of hopelessness.

The emotional impact of losing a job can negatively affect your motivation and your ability to search for a new career, if you let it. As the possibility of a recession looms over our heads, so does the potential for more layoffs. Is it possible to recession-proof your career? When asked what workers can do to prevent job losses and/or layoffs, “Not Much” was the response from John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement consulting organization. “You want to try to protect your position in case of job loss.” He says this is the time to try to be in the office more often, you want to have a lot of “face time” at the company. Although earlier in the article he stated: “No matter how good you are, everybody’s at risk.” Essentially, everyone is now competing with each other to get absolutely nowhere. Marina Oppenheimer, a licensed psychotherapist in Miami, states: “ men have been socialized to think their job is tied to their self-esteem. For them, losing a job is like a sense of your identity. Unlike women who are tied up with their jobs, but their self-esteem seems a bit less dependent on doing well then men.” Also in the same article, Damien Birkel, Founder of Professionals in Transition, a support group for unemployed and underemployed in Winston-Salem, N.C., states that there are six stages of job loss grief:
1) Shock and Denial
2) Fear and Panic
3) Anger
4) Bargaining
5) Depression
6) Temporary Acceptance.

Of these stages Birkel says the third stage, Anger, can be the most crippling. “ When you’re angry, not only do you end up in depression, but you’ll turn it on yourself and it’ll show up everywhere you go.” That is a very valid point, your thinking does seem to attract like actions into your life, but fear is also one of the most damaging of all the stages. When you begin to worry about the mortgage payment, the car payment, and other bills with upcoming due dates, that worry turns into fear and panic. Anger results, then of course depression. These negative feelings have a seriously profound effect on the mind and body. Negative feelings lower self-esteem, disables motivation, and depresses you. There has also been startling research and subsequent articles that provide proof that the middle-class and lower-wage earners are more in jeopardy of health problems and are living shorter lives.