Hard Economic Realities

Last year, the American economy lost 2.6 million jobs, about half of them in November and December. It was a fairly bleak Christmas “shopping season.”

We started the New Year with a national unemployment rate of 7.2%, and Los Angeles County hovers around 9%. Just this week, tens of thousands of additional layoffs were announced. 40,000 pink slips went out on Monday to such giant firms as Pfizer, Sprint/Nextel, Home Depot, Caterpillar, and General Motors. On Wednesday, Boeing announced plans to lay off 10,000 workers, including 750 in Seal Beach & El Segundo, and closing their Anaheim operation. (Long Beach, of course, already lost over 6,000 workers after Boeing bought its rival McDonell-Douglas, razed the factories, and developed the property for housing and retail.) Thursday morning we learned that Starbucks, the gourmet coffee chain, will close 300 more “under-performing” stores, laying off nearly 7,000 more workers, in addition to the 600 outlets it began closing last summer. And Circuit City, like Mervyns, both bankrupt, is holding final clearance of its entire inventory. They are history. The word I heard this morning is that 5,000,000 Americans are now receiving (extended) unemployment benefits!

As jobs disappear, those of us who are still employed must feel both gratitude to those who pay our salaries, and sympathy toward those whose lives have been suddenly disrupted. Those who are retired can count their lucky stars that their pensions, IRA’s, and 401(k)’s were not invested with swindler Bernie Madoff or the now-defunct Wall Street brokerage houses like Lehman Brothers. Still, the reduced market-value of the investments in most people’s retirement savings is causing our “fixed income” members to tighten their belts as much as 30% or so.

Seaside Community Church is fortunate that our operating money is held at F & M Bank, the most conservative and strongest financial institution in the LA area, and our “Bertha Hartley Perpetual Memorial Fund” ($4,000) is invested in the UCC Cornerstone Fund, which has lost no principal in the financial melt-down and continues to give us good market return. In those regards, the harsh economic realities that surround us have largely “bypassed” our budget.

On Monday night, Karen Ury, Mila Linke, & I attended a focus group conversation about church finances which included Larry & Beth Elwood. Their church in Riverside County, where the rate of job loss and foreclosures on new homes is much higher than here in Torrance or in the Beach communities, is facing a budget reduction of nearly 30%.

On Sunday, Feb. 22, our Seaside Church “Annual Congregational Meeting” will discuss and approve our proposed budget for 2009. Scott Bannon, our Financial Coordinator, hopes that we can maintain (and perhaps even increase) last year’s giving patterns. We postponed the Annual Meeting from January to this month in order to give everyone ample time to consider their new financial situation and make a pledge of support.

In hard times, we need to lean in a little closer to one another in mutual support.

May God bless you and yours.

Your Pastor,

Rev. Dr. Paul A. Lance