Perhaps the defining feature of the current economic recovery is that to most middle-class Americans, it hardly feels like recovery at all. Although the recession presumably ended more than a year ago, the economy has lost jobs for five straight months, and the unemployment rate spiked to a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June. Even for people who are comfortably employed, the specter of unemployment is pervasive, while for millions of unemployed workers, there is a sense of near-desperation. “My savings, which I have been using to supplement the unemployment, is gone,” said one reader in an e-mail to MSNBC. “I have NO idea what I will do.”
Economy at a turning point
Perhaps the defining feature of the current economic recovery is that to most middle-class Americans, it hardly feels like recovery at all. Even for people who are comfortably employed, the specter of unemployment is pervasive. MSNBC introduces you to some people caught in the middle.