Michiana job seekers: 'It's been hard' during economic downturn

By JEFF PARROTT, South Bend Tribune Staff Writer

jparrott@sbtinfo.com

Out of work since May, Laquita Aldridge thought she would have landed a job in the social services field by now.

Instead, the 32-year-old single mother from South Bend is still on the hunt, while struggling to feed her two children and keep her utilities turned on. She's thankful for her patient landlord, and hopes the state will approve a federally funded extension of her unemployment benefits when they expire in a week.

"It's been hard," Aldridge said recently as she left South Bend's crowded Work One center after a morning of checking on job openings. "If I didn't have my faith, I'd be lost, with my head down, but I believe in God. I think he'll make a way."

At The Tribune's annual economic forecast conference held at South Bend's Century Center in February, local economists predicted there would be no recession. One of them was Grant Black, assistant professor of economics at Indiana University South Bend.

Since then, a meltdown on Wall Street, triggered largely by the mortgage crisis, has drawn comparisons to the Great Depression, and Black is singing a different tune.

"I think things have gotten a little worse than we predicted," Black said recently. "We've probably seen deeper employment losses, higher prices, stronger financial uncertainties."

And Black thinks the picture will worsen before it improves.