WARNING – The beginning of this article may provoke temporary feelings of fiscally-induced depression, financial hopelessness, and overall economic-based anxiety, but PLEASE keep reading.
I used to love getting up every morning to the news on NPR. I’d lie in bed for a half an hour or so, slowly waking up and catching up on the local, national and world headlines thanks to Morning Edition and the great news staff at KUOW.
Now I dread it. Every day brings another dismal story about the economy. More job losses… more home foreclosures… another financial giant circling the economic toilet bowl. More often than not these days, I find myself hitting snooze.
I don’t think I’m the only one suffering a recent case of news-a-phobia either. I bet a lot of folks are scared. Who wouldn’t be? Unemployment is soaring. Every day the government is bailing a new industry out of a financial abyss. Economists and pundits are declaring this the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
All you hear these days are the dreaded D-words: depression, deflation, debt. As Homer Simpson would say, “D’oh!”
Locally in the Northwest, the picture is just as frightening. Unemployment is at 7.1% and the state’s Employment Security Department is processing twice as many claims as they were a year ago. Home prices are down 7%, while home sales have plummeted more than 30%. And the state’s projected budget deficit for the next two years just leaped to $8 billion dollars.
Basically, people are losing their jobs, losing their health insurance, losing their homes, and losing their nest eggs, while the state is anticipating huge cuts to vital services that would help people who have lost their jobs, health insurance, homes, and nest eggs.
Okay, you’ve made it through the ugly part of this article. Trust me, it gets better from here on out.
Last December, the production team at KCTS 9 decided enough was enough. Reporting all the dire and dismal economic news on a weekly basis was a little too much like watching a slow motion train wreck. So we embarked on a pretty ambitious series, designed to help people understand the current financial crisis, and navigate through it.
We’re calling the series Tough Times: Rising Above the Financial Crisis. We’re pooling the resources of our two flagship programs, KCTS 9 Connects and About The Money, to bring you three one-hour specials dealing with the biggest issues facing Washington state and the Pacific Northwest. KCTS 9’s Enrique Cerna and Josephine Cheng will co-host the shows which will air during the first three weeks in March.
Each show will be jam-packed with stories, information and expert guests, with one goal in mind: to help you deal with the financial crisis. Maybe you’ve lost your job. Maybe you’re behind on your mortgage payments. Perhaps you’ve watched your 401k evaporate before your eyes. Or maybe nothing’s changed for you, but you’re just worried about the financial downturn. No matter what your personal situation, there will be helpful information in these shows for you.
Part one on will deal with employment and jobs -- how to file for unemployment, job retraining programs, finding new health insurance, and other work issues.
Part two focuses on housing – help if you’ve lost your home, fallen behind on mortgage payments, and advice for sellers too.
Part three tackles personal finance and savings – how to make ends meet during a recession, finding a balance between saving and spending, and advice for investors worried about disappearing retirement accounts.
There’s going to be a lot more, but hopefully you get the idea.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as I’ve produced these shows, it’s this: IT’S NOT ALL BAD!
There is help out there. Help if you need a job. Help if you want to save your home. Help if want to get out of smothering credit card debt. There are jobs and opportunities, and lots of people and resources to help connect you to those jobs and opportunities.
To that end, KCTS 9 isn’t working alone. We’ve enlisted a huge team of community partners, like Worksource, Washington 211, the Department of Financial Institutions, AARP, and the YWCA, all offering vital resources to help you. You can get the complete list of our community partners and what services they offer on our Tough Times website.
I hope you’ll watch the special series on TV or Online.
Tough Times: Rising Above the Financial Crisis – Part I: Jobs
Tuesday, March 3 at 7:00 p.m. and Friday, March 6 at 7:00 p.m.
Tough Times: Rising Above the Financial Crisis – Part II: Homes
Tuesday, March 10 at 7:00 p.m. and Friday, March 13 at 7:00 p.m.
Tough Times: Rising Above the Financial Crisis – Part III: Personal Finance
Tuesday, March 17 at 7:00 p.m. and Friday March 20 at 7:00 p.m.
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