Remember back on 1 October 2025 when the government shut down, and millions of government employees were furloughed? My sister, an employee of the United States Forest Service, was among those people. She had already scheduled her vacation during the furlough time, and was also able to spend some time with our parents while away from work. I don't have any word yet on whether she received any back pay from the furlough time, and it certainly affected her financial bottom line. And...her vacation didn't count, because she was on furlough, so she has to take some more vacation time before the end of the year or lose the accrued vacation.

Also on 1 October 2025, my husband's employer (not a government entity) used the government shutdown as an excuse to fire him and six other employees. One of their clients, the U. S. Department of Energy, had not paid any of their invoices since July, and during the shutdown would definitely not be paying any more, for at least the length of the shutdown. My husband was not working on the U. S. Department of Energy project; he was mainly managing a project involving the consolidation of two retail hardware companies. His work would have been unaffected by the government shutdown. Office politics played a larger part in his firing than the government shutdown. He was denied an exit interview and received a small severance package. We were allowed to keep our employer-sponsored health insurance until the end of October.

We were able to stretch the severance funds to cover our bills and expenses for over two months. We worked together to greatly reduce our spending on discretionary items to almost nothing. The severance funds are nearly gone, however, and we still have to pay our bills. In lieu of life insurance, for the last three years I have been setting aside a little money every month into an investment account. I sold my shares and took all the proceeds out of that account last week. Also last week, my husband took an early withdrawal of about a third of his 401k savings. While this will be enough to pay our bills for a few more months if it has to, it isn't what it should be at our age, because we have had to take early withdrawals before because of other costly life circumstances. Now we are even further behind, and expect never to be able to truly retire.

My husband began a search for a new job within five minutes of being fired. He regularly maintains contacts with recruiters and people in his field all over the world. He has had dozens of interviews. It is a terrible time to be looking for a job - during a government shutdown, near the holidays, in a contracting economy, in an uncertain political landscape. He is progressing through the interviewing process with multiple companies and has multiple recruiters working on his case. Last week he launched a new strategy on LinkedIn and in one day the number of contacts he was making went up more than 54,000% (which sounds like a ridiculous, made-up statistic, but it is absolutely true). Last Friday he spoke personally with eleven people. He has a number of key interviews scheduled this week. He still has had no offers of employment.

My husband filed for unemployment as soon as possible after he was fired. His application remains, more than 60 days later, mired in a series of automatic denials, protests, scheduled and rescheduled meetings, and zero attention from an actual person in the state unemployment division. He is supposed to be meeting online with a real person tomorrow, but he has been in that situation before and the meeting was rescheduled without his consent. We have little to no hope that he will actually receive any unemployment benefit.

Over the last two months, I have been trying to get at least short-term employment as well. I began the hiring process with EduStaff, the contractor that provides substitute teachers. I've done the nine training modules, including the active shooter one and the one about restraint and isolation. I have three more steps to complete: I have to attend a workshop (signed up for one in January), get fingerprinted again (at a personal cost of who knows how much), and renew my teaching certificate (at a personal cost of $45). I put in my application with Shipt, a grocery delivery service for which I've worked before. They are not currently hiring in this area. It has been too long since I worked for them (2020) so I am no longer in the system. I predict that as soon as my husband is employed again, they will accept my application and send me the  getting started packet. If I'm thinking ahead, I'll do at least one shop every ninety days, and that at least will keep me active in the system in case something like this happens again. I'm not always willing to think ahead, though, and there are risks and drawbacks to gig work like that, too. I also put in an application to deliver for Amazon Flex - the one where you pick up a pile of packages with your own car and deliver them over the course of a shift. That, too, is gig work. I did both of those applications when my car was working.

Last Wednesday, my husband went to the basement to do his morning workout. As it has recently become too cold outside to practically take a walk for exercise, he logged in to the Xbox to start up his dance game, and found that his subscription to the game had expired. Obviously he didn't want to incur the cost to resubscribe right now, so he shut down the Xbox and started up the old Wii, planning to use the Wii Fit or Zumba game. There was a problem getting the motion sensors to connect, so he couldn't do that either. Later I suggested he try YouTube videos of the dance game or Zumba, which he seems to enjoy now, but we decided to sell the Wii console and all the accessories since it wasn't working anyway. So I listed it on eBay and it sold immediately, before I even got the confirmation email for the listing. I packed it all up and went out to the garage, put it in my trunk and got in the driver's seat, buckled up and pushed the starter. My car would not start. I put the box in my husband's car and took it to the post office. When I got back, I called my son, who is an auto mechanic. He is hopeful that my car just needs a new battery. It is seven years old and still has the original battery, so I am also hopeful. In the meantime, I cannot start the car, and I cannot currently afford to have it towed to Spring Lake, nor can I currently afford to buy a new battery - or whatever other parts it might need. So, even if I could get hired, I can't do gig work.

We are trying as hard as we can not to need medical care. We have both rescheduled or cancelled appointments for routine health care because we don't have insurance coverage. When I woke up last Friday with a bloody nose, I investigated the whole-house humidifier and found that it wasn't working. We were able to replace the solenoid valve that controls water flow to the humidifier unit and it is working again; we both feel better now that the air is moisturized. Fortunately it was an easy repair that only cost us about $30. If we had had to call a plumber or HVAC service person, we would not have been able to afford it.

We still (for another 21 days) have the option for continuing our former health insurance coverage if we have to opt in - at more than $2700 per month to cover three people. The high cost forced us to consider other options, and so I made an application to the healthcare.gov marketplace. We committed to our children that we would cover their health care and health insurance premiums until they are 26. Our daughter, whose employer offers health insurance, has her own policy and we reimburse her costs - premiums, copays, etc. Our son, whose employer does not offer health insurance, had been a beneficiary of our employer-sponsored insurance, along with us. So we paid his premiums with ours and reimbursed his costs. When our health coverage was terminated, so was his. We retain the option until the end of this month to opt in to COBRA for his health insurance, and if he had an emergency requiring health care, we would be able to opt in just to his coverage, pay the last two months of premiums, and his health care needs would be covered. After that, we have purchased a plan from the marketplace to cover our son's health care needs going forward (until he is 26).

My husband and I did not qualify for a marketplace plan - because we currently have no income. Instead, we were referred to our state's Medicaid service, run here in Michigan by MIBridges. I made an application for the two of us, and it was approved straight away; the website even gave me the opportunity to print out copies of our benefit cards and request physical cards to be sent to me. Today, when I saw two envelopes from MDHHS in my Informed Delivery email from the postal service, I assumed that's what would arrive. Instead, one was a letter confirming our coverage. The second was a letter requesting more information - and threatening denial of coverage if I didn't provide the information and proof that information was true. Today is Monday, the day I received the demand. The forms are due by Thursday - by mail. Not postmarked by Thursday, due by Thursday. In their office in Royal Oak. I tried to call for clarification but declined to wait when the automated system told me I was 24th in line.

The MDHHS (Michigan Department of Health and Human Services) wanted proof of our income in the last 30 days. I don't know how to prove we have no income. I wrote in the blanks that my husband lost his job on 10/1. I wrote that he has applied for unemployment but has not received it. I wrote that I am not employed. On the next page, they wanted a list of our expenses - but only our expenses as guardian, conservator, child support, care for adult with disabilities, employment-related expenses, dependent care expenses, or medical expenses. With proof. We don't have any of those - I don't think. Then they wanted a list of "all assets" with proof. I did my best. I listed our accounts and the money in them. I listed our house - with a mortgage and a home equity loan. I listed our cars - one of which isn't running and we can't afford to fix it, and the other worth only half what we owe on it. It was a humiliating process. This list cannot possibly explain our financial position and leaves us open to identity theft in many of the worst possible ways. I did my best.

Then I took this form and accompanying "proof" to the post office, in its Business Reply Mail envelope, and asked the clerk whether there was any hope of it actually arriving in time to the office. My choices were: (1) send it as is, expected to arrive Thursday, but no guarantee, (2) send it Priority Mail at $11.90, expected to arrive Thursday, but no guarantee, (3) send it Express Mail at $35.90, guaranteed to arrive Wednesday. Given that $11.90 is more than one dinner at home, and $35.90 means both of us eat for a whole day, I asked the clerk to postmark it 10/8/2025 and I'm going to hope for the best. If they don't get it by Thursday, I'll have to join the queue on the phone, and if they don't take my explanation that I literally filled it out and returned it the moment I received it, I'll have to start the process of contacting my state representative and state senator's offices again. That, too, is unlikely to get me anywhere, given that the absolute assholes this district elected on the last go-round have stated equivocally that they don't care about people. Logical arguments don't work on them, only money.

My question to my husband, when I returned home from the post office today, was this: How do regular people in need navigate this system? Even now, with no income and what feels to me like desperation and prostration by debt, we have more than the average person. We have literacy and education, sort of a financial safety net, family and friends who would help us if we had to ask; we still have food, shelter and clothing; we still have reasonable health and could access health care if we needed it. I know I write from a place of privilege. But the average person who needs Medicaid - or unemployment benefits - or food security - or housing assistance - is likely not to even have the internet connection I used to access the system...or a mailbox to receive the demand letter that's due in three days...or the literacy to understand that the welcome offer of health insurance will be snatched away if you don't do these seven things, in order, by the deadline, which is, by the way, almost past by the time you know there is a deadline.

And this system? It's been in place for a long time, established by Michigan law, instituted well before the current regime began breaking down social service programs. It's horrible, frustrating, dehumanizing and wrapped in red tape. It's wrong that it is so hard to get help when you need it.