I was reading the Facebook statuses for my friends when I came across a very interesting one about how we should try to get as many free groceries as possible because we are currently in a depression.
The words economic depression, for me, conjure up the era of of previous generations, when my father had drop out of school in order to get any work he could to help support his large family, such as picking crumbs of coal off of the railroad tracks to sell them. I envision long lines where people are waiting for soup, the only meal they may get that day.
Are we really at that point? According to a Gallup poll, 29 percent of us would say that we are currently in an economic depression.
It is true that current economic growth is so very slow, prices for everything including food, are rising, and more and more people are struggling. For someone who is out of work and trying to figure out how to feed her family, it may seem like a depression indeed.
If we just look at the numbers, though, our economy is far from a depression. We are still considered to be in a recovery phase from the last “Great Recession” that hit rock bottom around July of 2009, two years ago. It is true that at this point in time, we should have bounced back higher than we have, if previous recessions are any indication of economic phases.
The recovery is taking a long time, but we are recovering, so far. The unemployment rate is falling, but not fast enough. We are still hovering around nine percent. Businesses and consumers are weary and not spending. We are all in our own personal gloomy depressions, in a sense. Many of us are just too exhausted and have little reserves to climb out of the whole quickly.
A recession can be devastating. For example, the poverty rate for kids in this country is approaching 25 percent. Pretty scary. State and federal funding of services, from schools to nutrition programs are getting cut due to lack of money, just at the time that they have to spread further.
The average family actually carries less debt now, but inflation has also made our salaries not go as far, and in fact, people are being paid less than they were a few years ago.
So what is the bottom line? Technically, we are not in a depression and not likely to enter one any time soon, although it sure feels that way.