Losing a job is terrifying. It’s only after that steady paycheck is no longer predictable that you realize how vulnerable you are. All your debt starts looming over your head; all your future plans are put on hold; all your expenditures are now questionable and negotiable; your very home is no longer a refuge since it may be snatched away at any moment.
Having just been laid off from my own job, I get this. I totally get this. I wouldn’t wish a job loss on anyone. No one with a conscience would.
We’re hearing about the massive number of government employees who are losing their jobs. The Deep State and its bureaucrats are being purged. Cuts are happening in the Department of Education, DHS, DOE, EPA, USDA, IRS, DOD and of course USAID, among much else.
Additionally, many of the legacy media outfits are downsizing. The Los Angeles Times, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, the Washington Post … all are losing readership or viewership in droves and being forced to scale back as a result, leaving many journalists flapping in the breeze.
By some estimates, a million federal employees have lost, or will lose, their jobs. That’s a million more people unemployed. A million more people worried about losing their homes. A million more people groping in the dark, trying to figure out how to pay their bills.
This includes, incidentally, Hunter Biden, whose art career and memoir sales have tanked now that Daddy is no longer president. Because his “income has decreased significantly,” he admitted in a legal filing that he had run out of money for a defamation lawsuit because he could no longer sell his paintings. “Given the positive feedback and reviews of my artwork and memoir, I was expecting to obtain paid speaking engagements and paid appearances, but that has not happened,” he whined.
Sympathy is running thin for laid-off workers. In fact, many Americans are rejoicing over the purge, including some friends and family of the newly unemployed. There is a lot of pent-up anger in the private sector about just how much government waste and abuse has been taking place over the last generation, and how vigorously the mainstream media denied or defended it. For better or worse, the newly unemployed aren’t getting a lot of compassion.
“There’s something mean-spirited about rejoicing in another person’s economic misfortune,” observes Robby Soave with Reason magazine. “Even if the media landscape is frequently toxic, it’s cruel to gratuitously champion firings.”
Cruel or not, the general attitude seems to be, “Suck it up, buttercup.” As Corinne Clark Barron noted in American Greatness, “[Federal employees] are devastated over the oh-so-unprecedented concept of layoffs, as if no one in the history of employment has ever lost a job before. At this rate, you’d think federal employees were the most oppressed class in American history.”
She continues: “Because while the feds have been busy throwing a tantrum, their buddies in Washington have been working overtime to protect their own. And as usual, it’s the private sector that’s about to take the first – and hardest – hit. Defense contractors? On the chopping block. Private companies doing business with the government? Getting gutted. The people who actually build things, create jobs, and drive innovation? About to get fired – big time. And do you think we’ll hear a peep from the same people sobbing over federal layoffs? Not a chance.”
Oddly enough, a lot of the “cry me a river” attitude toward the newly unemployed hearkens back to the Biden administration’s callous reshaping of many industries. Coal miners, pipefitters, manufacturing – all saw massive layoffs during the Biden years. The newly unemployed were told, essentially, to suck it up, buttercup.
Biden famously gave snarky and unfeeling advice to coal miners losing their jobs due to his war on fossil fuels. “Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well,” he said. The remark has been popularly remembered as “Learn to code.” I don’t know if Biden or his handlers had any idea of the cold fury that swept Middle America at that casual comment.
The purge of legacy media and federal employees is seen as the embodiment of karma. This is not necessarily fair, but it reflects the pent-up wrath among the American people. (“Let them suffer! Look what they did to us!”) In most cases, Americans are not angry at particular individuals (with the possible exception of Hunter Biden); they’re blaming whole groups. Fair or not, that’s the attitude in Flyover Country.
Interestingly, Corinne Clark Barron and her husband are prepped to lose their own employment. “My husband is a defense contractor,” she writes, “and we are fully prepared to take a hit and adjust if it becomes necessary. That’s life. That’s how it works. And that’s exactly what private-sector employees have been doing for decades – without all the dramatics.”
In fact, it’s the dramatics that angers Barron: “See, this has always been the problem. The federal government never cares when the private sector pays the price for their bad policies. When the economy takes a hit, private businesses struggle. When COVID lockdowns wreaked havoc, the private sector bore the brunt. When the housing market crashed, guess who took the fall? Not government employees. Through every crisis, the average American paid the price while bureaucrats kept their comfy jobs, taxpayer-funded salaries, and unshakable job security.
“They never even considered that one day, they might have to face the consequences of the bloated system they helped build,” she continued. “Well, welcome to reality. For the first time in recent history, the federal workforce is realizing they are not immune to the very economic conditions they contributed to. And unlike the rest of us, they have no idea how to handle it. But here’s some tough love: you’ll survive. Just like the millions of private-sector workers who have been laid off, found new jobs, and kept this country running – without all the tears.”
Believe me, I’m aware that not everyone who was fired “deserved” to be fired. Hopefully after the dust settles, such issues can be rectified, but I don’t know.
In our case, we’re getting by despite the job layoff because we pre-positioned ourselves a long time ago for this possibility. We spent years trimming expenses, paying off every cent of debt, and keeping several side-gig “irons in the fire,” which we’re now heating up. Some trolls who lurk in the comments section have mocked me for writing inspirational romance novels (#ad); but let me tell you, those romance novels are saving our economic fanny at the moment since they’re bringing in enough money to get by. Sideline gigs, folks; just think sideline gigs.
So here’s my advice to the newly unemployed: God helps those who help themselves. Drop to your knees and thank the Almighty for His blessings, and seek His guidance going forward. Then rise to your feet and get busy. You have a job to do.