The basics: Retired teacher, 57. Divorced, she is white and lives in a cluster home in northern Summit County with her two cats. She gets about $48,400 a year from her pension. She bought a new, small SUV two years ago and has paid it off. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees and studied for a doctorate but quit before finishing her dissertation after concluding “I would never make the money teaching college.”
How we got in trouble: “I think it all started, of course, with the recession, the bailing out of the banks, all of those things. But I think the whole country was living beyond our means and it caught up with us.”
America Today project seeks citizen input
This project opens journalism to a two-way street. In the hope of learning what you’re thinking and getting citizens more involved in our stories, we’ve added an interactive experiment: We are offering you an opportunity to answer some of the same tough questions we are posing to citizens in the America Today series.
In addition to the traditional Ohio.com comment page, the newspaper is partnering with the Civic Commons, an online organization that encourages respectful and informed debate of tough issues from a variety of perspectives and experiences. Below are the two opportunities to express yourself on these questions:
How did we as a nation get in trouble economically?
Whom do you blame?
How do we as a nation solve our economic problems?
What are you doing differently to get through the downturn?
