I was laid off and can't find a job. My savings are nearly gone and my self-confidence is low, but I believe I'll find one.
I had my dream job as a voice engineer for 15 years. My work-life balance was good, and the job was mostly remote, which allowed me to take in my father, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, four years ago.
I would've stayed in the job forever. My plan was to work for about 10 more years to pay down our mortgage. Then, at 68, it'd be easy to live off of Social Security and savings.
I was laid off on a Wednesday at the end of April in a massive corporate layoff, and I haven't found a new job yet.
My layoff was a complete shock
I worked for this company for 20 years, and we went through a number of acquisitions. There were plenty of layoffs, but I'd never been affected by one. I definitely had a false sense of security.
I went to Walmart the day I got laid off to get a laptop. The panic for me to get another job and get us back into our harmonious daily cadence set in quickly.
I've applied to a few dozen jobs. I'm a very confident person, but my self-confidence is very low due to the job search.
I placed the lump sum I received in severance in the savings account I share with my husband. On the days I would've normally been paid, I transferred my typical paycheck amount to our checking account so I could continue to pay our bills as usual. My husband works part-time, and my father gets Social Security checks.
I don't want to lose our dream property
My husband's and my savings will dry up sometime within a month. I have to start working because I can't lose the dream property we bought three years ago.
We had always wanted to own a piece of land with family members on the property. Our property is very wooded and has a large barn and a small guest house, where a couple who are our family friends live. We have 10 hens, one rooster, a dog, and a cat. My son, daughter, husband, father, and I live in the main home.
Five days after I got laid off, our 26-year-old daughter called to say she was miserable in Kentucky due to the challenges of launching a business and would be moving home. Our son, 28, has always lived with us.
I joke with my husband about how we're never going to be empty nesters. My dream is to have the whole family living on our property. That's my legacy; when I'm gone, they'll have it.
Before we sell this house, we'd probably see what else we could sell, such as vehicles. We haven't charged our kids rent, but we'll be asking them to contribute. I might have to take out 401(k) retirement money early with government penalties, which is sickening.
Taking care of things
Since being laid off, there have only been a couple of days early on when I really didn't want to get out of bed.
I make the bed every morning. Once you've done your first job, you're ready to get more accomplished. I let the chickens out and feed them, and wait for the beautiful eggs that they lay for us.
I've always had responsibilities, whether it was caring for the kids or my dad.
My caregiving responsibilities for my father aren't challenging overall. I just make sure that he takes his medications, drinks plenty of liquids, is provided with meals and snacks, and I drive him to some appointments. My husband and son have played a huge role in my father's well-being since he's lived with us.
He has experienced several dementia-related setbacks since April, which now require more time and attention. It only adds to the chaos of it all.
I can't stand not working
I'm working harder than I've worked in years, trying to network and apply for jobs.
I've gotten auto-replies saying that they've received my application. Occasionally, I get a response saying the position has been filled. Before this, I hadn't had to do a job interview in decades. Back in the day, you met people in person for it. I recently had an interview over video call.
I'm applying to different positions in telecommunications. As a voice engineer, I created call routing menus that customers would call and worked with internal teams on telecom issues. Uploading recordings like, "Please hold for the next available representative" was commonplace for me.
I've had to expand my search
The challenge now is taking my specific role and utilizing the base of my knowledge for another role. I'm trying to stay away from the engineering aspect because I want to use my skills that separate me from engineers. I may end up as a customer service agent, since I know all the tools.
I've expanded my job search from fully remote to hybrid. I'm not entertaining part-time jobs, but once panic sets in, who knows? I'd like to get a salary that's closer to what I was used to, so I can go back to my "normal."
I don't know why it's taking so long, but I'm trying to be patient. I believe my soft skills will certainly find me a position.
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But the federal government can tax a portion of your Social Security benefits. And that doesn't sit well for a lot of seniors. It almost feels kind of like a double taxation, right? Because throughout our working years, we're all paying into Social Security on our wages. And, you know, the promise is that you're going to pay taxes, you're going to pay into Social Security, but then when you're older and retired, you're going to get a monthly benefit. And then it's like, hey, guess what? You're not necessarily going to keep that monthly benefit in full because once your income exceeds a certain threshold, a portion of your benefits can be taxed. Now, here's the problem. Social Security is eligible for an annual COLA, which means that benefits historically have risen from one year to the next. There have been a few years in history with a zero COLA. But for the most part, we have seen benefits rise from one year to the next. 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That's counted into your combined income and then also half of your annual Social Security benefit is factored into your combined income. And basically, if you're single, once your combined income is $25,000 or higher, you're going to be paying taxes on a portion of your Social Security benefits. Now, let's think about that. $25,000. I mean, you know, yes, that's factoring in half your annual Social Security benefit, but even if we want to pad that by another $10,000, $12,000, let's talk about $37,000 a year, $40,000 a year. Are you like rolling in dough at $40,000 a year? I'm not. Snyder: No, you're typically, you know, especially if you're a retiree, you're at a fixed income. And so, you know, one of the things I want to ask you about, I want to kind of close on this, is you talked about taxation now during the campaign, we're not a political show, but, you know, there were some policy preferences or suggestions about eliminating the tax on Social Security. First, Maurie, is that possible? And what would that mean to our conversation this morning about the cost of living adjustment? Related: Medicare beneficiaries quietly face looming crisis Backman: So, that's a tricky thing too, because so President-elect Trump had pledged to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits. And a big part of me wants to say that that's a really good idea, because there's a lot of people whose income is really right above that threshold where they're liable for taxes, right? But since we just discussed that it was such a low threshold, these people cannot afford to lose some of their benefits to taxes. So, in that regard, I think eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits could be a positive thing. But then we also have to remember that Social Security doesn't just get funded by payroll taxes, it also gets funded by these taxes on benefits. Now, as it stands, we are already looking at a funding shortfall for Social Security. The program's combined trust funds are set to run dry in 2035. And at that point, benefit cuts could be on the table. So, now we have to balance the upside of not taxing Social Security so that seniors get to keep their benefits in full now versus the potential downside of, well, then what does that do to Social Security's overall financial picture? And what does that mean for benefit cuts down the line? It's a very tricky thing, and I do not envy lawmakers who have to make these decisions. And Jeff, to be clear, there's a push to not only end taxes on Social Security benefits, but also to change the way Social Security COLAs are calculated. That's a whole other issue because the reality is that the formula that's used now is not very beneficial to seniors. It really does not very accurately capture the costs that seniors specifically tend to incur. So, lawmakers really have their work cut out for them in the coming years with regard to Social Security. Snyder: They certainly do, Maurie. We've got a new Congress, a new president. Hey, look, they can't kick the can down the road too much longer because they're going to have to deal with other potential challenges. Maurie, it's always great to see you. Expert Analysis, as always. Thanks so much for joining us, and we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon. Backman: That's it. Snyder: And don't forget to subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Morning Pulse, for all the news in one place. Details, of course, at our website. And we're back again tomorrow for another edition of BRN. Until then, I'm Jeff Snyder. Stay safe, keep on saving, and don't forget, roll with the changes. Related: Jean Chatzky shares retirement tips on Social Security, Medicare The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
