Uncertain Economic and Political Climate
Tariffs, immigrant deportation, and federal layoffs have influenced my ‘job security’ meter. At work, the budget was already getting tight, and now I’m getting that strong sense of uncertainty reminiscent of Covid times seeping into the workplace.
This web site is a way for me to release anxiety around aging and staying employed. So it may come as no surprise that I’m constantly looking at the news while hyper-sensitive to all budget-related decisions at the workplace (yes, decisions affecting the country as well, but there is a hierarchy of concerns). At my workplace, we’ve already been told how tariffs and immigrant deportation affects one area of our company, and therefore budgets get really tight.
So then I see in the news how even more decisions are happening and employees are losing their jobs, agencies challenged, trade wars, costs going up - all that affects my company, too.
There is much out of my control. I’ll never be able to control things outside myself. I must remain stable, reliable, and level-headed, even if a lay-off should happen. I don’t know my future, but I do know I can control my present. The main thing is how to convey this to my family in a way that says “we must be in alignment on controlling costs purposefully, but we can do so without panicking.”
In a way I wonder if that’s what my work is trying to tell me anyway - that though our trajectory is towards losing lots of business, we still should be reliable and level-headed.
There’s much about the federal government (state and local, too, for that matter) that I don’t understand. I am aware there are always better, or preferred, ways of accomplishing policy. Whether changes are going to be helpful for us as a country or not, one thing is certain: instability and uncertainty negatively affects markets.
It makes me realize we need that level-headedness and reliability in our government leadership as well. That would stable markets, which would then make my job security meter teeter back in the right direction.
Supposedly I’ll be getting a minor salary increase soon - as part of our annual cycle. Do I keep the cash for or put that towards paying off the house? Paying off the house had been plan A up until a few weeks ago. I’ve got to get the house payed off before I lose the job. The other thing I’m hearing is that social security could be at risk, so I’m going to need every single dime I’ve saved for retirement when that time comes.