I was a federal government contractor and I was laid off about ten weeks ago.

The current economy is a wasteland when it comes to hiring in my field (Frontend Web Development and UI/UX Design).

I went from a comfortable lifestyle to struggling with the worry of becoming homeless.

I'm trans, with a trans girlfriend who's Chilean. She can't come to the US because she's almost guaranteed to disappear if she tries to cross the border, legally or illegally. I can't get my gender marker changed because I live in Texas, so a lot of women-only services that check IDs won't allow me to use them. I can't get my passport changed without risking it being confiscated or being arrested for fraudulent documentation. I'm in hell and there is no help.

Here's what you need to understand.

Even if things get worse, a lot of the MAGots are never going to blame Trump.

Back in the Hitler Era, there were Germans who'd tell you that the problems would be solved "...if the Leader knew about them." His people will tell you that the problems are caused by 'government red tape' or 'malicious compliance.'

Trump has given them the excuse to be horrible people, and that's worth suffering for.

My wife couldn't get a mammogram, because there was a non-zero chance she could be pregnant. There was no evidence to suggest she might be, but they decided it was a possibility and turned her away.

Her role as a wife, as a mother, as a woman, as a human are all less important than her role as a womb-haver.

This was in Texas, and it's the inevitable result of women losing the right of bodily autonomy. She ended up taking a pregnancy test in a Whataburger bathroom.

Other than that, the biggest impact of this administration on my life has been a huge increase in anxiety. Looking into leaving the country.

I'm unemployed thanks to the president!

Honestly, almost everyone I know has had layoffs (voluntary or otherwise) at their jobs, with discussions of more to come. This is across many industries -- research, medical, technology, communication, manufacturing, etc. A lot of places are also on hiring freezes or restrictions at a minimum.

For the time being, I'm alright. I have lived frugally and saved. I've cut back on expenses significantly to conserve what reserves I have. My needs are met for now.

I'm largely perplexed at where things are going.

On the one hand, a lot of the economic indicators seem optimistic. Somehow unemployment numbers are not completely terrible (yes I know the numbers are cooked, but they always have been). Stock market is back up to record highs again. Official inflation numbers are up, but only marginally so. Lots of people are looking around and saying "This is fine. Things are alright."

Stock market and official numbers aside, though, almost everything is noticeably more expensive at the grocery store than it was even 6 months ago. I've cut back to generic brands of almost everything, but I'm paying almost the same prices that I was paying for name brand stuff at the beginning of the year. Coffee, produce, dairy products, and meat are especially more costly. Ironically, egg prices have gone down. People are very nervous about their jobs, cutting back on spending now just in case they get laid off soon. Yet, lots of people are stressed out because all the layoffs that have happened mean more work for the ones left behind, delays due to not having enough help, and ironically, projects going over budget because they have to get new folks ramped up on projects after the ones with that knowledge were let go, lots of stories like that. I'm not even working now and hearing that stuff stresses me out.

Emotionally, I'm definitely fighting demons. There's just this ingrained aspect of American culture that if you're not working when you're working age and otherwise healthy, then you're less worthy, lazy, mooching, etc. Plus, there's still so much stigma around getting laid off, and ultimately people tend to presume it was performance related and/or a reflection of poor work ethic. And to top it off, there's just a certain political segment of the population that has trouble just being empathetic, so when they find out I'm unemployed there's no sympathy, it's always some variation of victim blaming and victim shaming (ex: you deserved it because the agencies funding you were rotten, I pay too much in taxes and can't afford to pay your salary anymore, you should have gotten a real job, etc).

I can't afford as many groceries because the cost of everything just keeps going up.

My SO owes an impossible amount of student loans, and her repayment plan is being cancelled. It looks like the Trump admin is gearing up for debtor's prisons soon.

Edit: typo

My private research institute (in pure mathematics) lost half its funding. I think the fed is hoping a rough labor market will keep people focused on themselves. I’ve reduced my hours at work so I can spend one full day a week to help organize with the community.

I have several friends who are having trouble finding employment because the job market has cratered, including one friend who just finished a PhD and had trouble finding even a crappy job because the federal government was firing so many people in her field at the same time. She would've had to leave the U.S., because she's not a citizen yet. Another friend took a job in New Zealand instead of locally, partly because he's also not a citizen. I worry about such friends, whether their visas will get revoked, or worse, ICE will come for them. Also, I worry about LGBT friends, and friends with health concerns who have care only because of the Affordable Care Act.

My own job is secure— for now. The university department that I work for gets a lot of funding from tuition, in addition to research grants. However, several of my grant-funded co-workers (seeing the writing on the wall) have quit, and a number of potential graduate students have had to decline our offer to study here. There's been a wave of faculty retirements, or faculty leaving for endowment-funded universities. The whole campus faces budget cuts, and research getting shut down. I can forget about a raise; and cost-of-living adjustments— who knows?

Meanwhile, groceries (among other things) are noticeably more expensive, and my taxes will be going up, so that's neat.

I bid on electrical construction contracting and the random tariffs have raised the price of electrical components fairly badly, and made us have to raise prices. Really Covid delays are the worst thing in our field. The lead times backed up in 2020 and maybe are just getting back to normal now, except the threat of tariffs have added a new twist. The price of food has been going up since covid also. I don't think it has anything to do with the current administration, because they were going up in the last one too. I think worse things in food prices are going to hit in a year or so if they don't stop kicking out the field workers... The worst thing really that can be directly attributed to the current administration is that they are giving local farm workers a hard time and raising the tone of the rhetoric against Mexicans in general in red hat conservatives. That is reason enough to hate this admin...

Some of the people I work with are naturalized citizens with a Hispanic background. I constantly wonder if I’ll show up to work one day and find out that they’ve “disappeared”.