Hot Topic (2/18): Are you better off now than a year ago?

[Cafe GroupAdmin]

 

Stimulus, Year One: Are You Better Off?

One year after President Obama signed into law his mammoth $787-billion stimulus plan – meant to revive the economy and create or save millions of jobs – are you better off than you were this time last year?

Are you happy with how the President handled the economic crisis?

What are your thoughts?

[Joqui]

 You know we weren't affected.. we didn't make money when Bush was in office but we started making money when we were in a recession.. dh got a better paying job and is now managing a small co. so I guess you can say I am pretty happy... does that have anything to do with Obama? I really don't think so but I didn't blame the bad times we had on Bush either

[babie113]

things are better for us but not because of obama

[tericared]

 I havent really affected one way or the other...

[soccerchik8287]

Things are better, but it has more to do with China's economy than ours. My hubby works for a chemical company that ships like 85% of their stuff to China. He was laid off for 6months, but finally got rehired this past April. Our city is doing much worse than last year though. Every day in the paper all it talks about is how our unemployment rate is going up. So sad!

[toomanypoodles]

 The president did nothing for me, my husband's hard work is what has made us successful. 

[Malika_Risley]

No, bad move. This money is gone into the pockets of senior management. Who's checking? The rule of free market, let the companies recover on their own. Best ones will succeed and some will fail!Tough luck, but that's a capitalist rule.

Is anyone going to bail my family out if we can't make ends meet? We don't qualify for unemployment since my husband is self-employed and I'm not working. Luckily our taxes haven't changed yet, but it probably won't stay that way. We're doing fine, but that's not due to stimulus, my husband is working very hard to make things go right for our family. And I sure hope Obama doesn't screw with it too much!

[katy_kay]

 I would have said no but I didn't want to add to the sky is falling answer (seriously, a simple no we are still struggling wouldn't have worked?!) 

We lost nearly half our income last year and due to the lack of new commercial construction we will not pick it back up until new work is available.  Yes this has a lot to do with a lack of loans available but I can see that some signs that things are leveling out for other people for us it's still a hold on by our fingernails time and hope we can keep everything until I can find work or he can get on a new project. 

[Talee]

 Nope...I still am going on 70 hours verse 80 and it has affected me a lot....its amazing what a few hundred less bucks a check can do. I had some emergency setbacks last summer which got me into even more debt and its hard to climb out with less money.

[IhartU]

 We haven't been affected at all... Everything has been good. I see no difference.

[mamadixon]

Yes and no...my husband's school announced another 6 furlough days this semester. That is a total of 11 on the year, plus the 3% pay cut he took in the beginning. His pay has dropped so much we actually qualified for EIC. So that is the no. We are all healthy and happy, the children are growing, and our marriage is strong. I am still, barely, able to stay home full-time and we haven't missed a mortgage payment so...there is the yes.