If your birth year starts with a nineteen-eighty or a number lower than that, you probably still remember The Great Recession causing havoc on the world’s economies from 2007 to 2009. It’s not hard to see why—events like this usually have an effect that’s difficult to forget.

But those who did not live through the difficult time—or were too little to understand or care much about it—might not know just how terrible it can get. That’s because some things can only be fully grasped when they happen, as was the case with the impact of The Great Recession.

One member of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community recently started a discussion on the less-than-cheerful topic, asking what is something about a recession that can only truly be comprehended after it happens. A number of netizens shared their two cents on the topic, compiling quite an extensive list of things that might happen. If you want to learn more about them, scroll down to find the Redditors’ answers on the list below.

#1

The jobs are just gone.

Like, not the jobs you’re qualified for and generally work in are gone, that can happen pretty much anytime, but like there are *no job openings anywhere.*

As a result, a lot of migration happens. People move around looking for jobs, or they move places where their money will go further.

Image credits: ryguymcsly

#2

I hope you love your job, because if you don’t get laid off, you’re going to be working there for many more years with no raises and no new job prospects on the horizon.

Image credits: Galacticwave98

#3

How quickly your average family can go from feeling like a secure middle class family to being absolutely destitute. It takes most people about a month.

Image credits: Thursdaze420

#4

Showing up to test for a single county job that pays $12/hour with 500 other people who passed the initial screening.

Image credits: Rurumo666

#5

Some people lives will be ruined and they will never recover, just because they were an unlucky one. They will see no mercy, and always be told it was their own fault, that they lost everything, despite doing everything they were supposed to.

Image credits: Maximum_Pound_5633

#6

People lose their jobs, sure. You expect that. But people lose their homes too. And some of those people have no safety net, nowhere else to go. Those people wind up maybe living in their car, or at a shelter, or worse. And it’s because of policy choices by elected officials somewhere.

Image credits: limbodog

#7

How quickly a micro business that you’ve spent years building can disappear.

Image credits: WearyEnthusiasm6643

#8

The 2008 recession was interesting for me because I was young and poor, but had a ton of older wealthy clients at work. I couldn’t believe how many of them went from extreme wealth to losing everything. No amount of money made them untouchable. One of my clients took his own life when he lost everything. I remember being in constant fear that the business I worked for would go under because eventually there was almost no clients coming in. I think you can’t grasp the magnitude of fear and loss during that time unless you were old enough to really experience it.

Image credits: thesixthamethyst

#9

There’s a lot of “antiwork” style content on Reddit. If we hit a recession, and unemployment skyrockets, a lot of people are going to see just how much worse that can get. A lot of people who weren’t alive in 2008 don’t know the leverage the recent low unemployment numbers had given folks. And the Great Recession happened under Obama, who pushed for consumer and labor protections. Now it will be under Trump, who is completely gutting OSHA, the NLRB and the CFPB.

They’ll be some states allowing some INSANE labor practices. Imagine what employers will get people to agree to, when the unemployment rate has doubled and it’s legal to replace workers on the factory floor with literal children.

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#10

How slow it starts, and then how fast it cascades.

Image credits: EmperorKira

#11

Seeing your friends and coworkers be pulled into the corner meeting room by HR, only to emerge 10 minutes later with a 1000 yard stare as they grab a box and putting their pictures of their kids, plants, and other stuff into it.  

If you have any empathy, you feel terrible that their entire life just got abruptly changed in a blink of an eye.  And if you have any self-awareness, you then instantly realize how precariously close you are to it being your turn.

A deep recession like 2008 is miserable, so you could power the globe with the hatred I have right now for everyone involved with, or are cheering on, intentionally pushing us off an economic cliff.

Image credits: I_Enjoy_Beer

#12

The sheer amount of redundancies. I remember the 08 recession, all the older and middle aged people that were let go from their jobs started taking anything just to pay their mortgage / bills. A lot of them started working at McDonalds etc. Younger or inexperienced people literally had nowhere to work because everything shifted from the top downwards. It was sad to see on both sides tbh.

Image credits: Wednesdayspirit

#13

You are not going to f*****g believe how hard it’s going to be to get a job. Hardly anyone will be hiring, for years on end. On the rare occasion that someone can’t avoid hiring, you’re gonna be looking at 500 applicants for one empty position. You won’t be able to get a gig at McDonald’s, because they can get someone with 20 years experience with fully open availability who will work for less than you.

Image credits: freemanposse

#14

America is so afraid of socialism that we will let families with children be homeless. In Vegas, the tunnels were full of families. Also, so many pets were homeless. We had roaming cat gangs who had feral kittens.

Image credits: SubstantialReturns

#15

In knowledge fields, which is a lot of the USA right how, two groups get really f****d during a recession: those entering the workforce and those about to exit.

The new workers with no experience are outcompeted by those who have experience. An experienced worker is dollar for dollar more effective.

The old workers have the most pay and are easy cost-cutting targets because they were a few years from retirement anyway. They also are now needing to use a pension that may be tied up in the market, but aren’t yet able to collect social security.

Those in the middle get a different kind of s**t, they only end up doing the work of the other two groups with no raise or advancements in sight.

Image credits: wayoverpaid

#16

That everything about work sucks more during a recession even if you keep your job. People will get fired or laid off and you’ll wonder if you’re next. Managers will get more persnickety about things like utilization rate (hassling you for every hour that you can’t bill directly to clients), deepening the anxiety. Raises will be trimmed.

There will be fewer openings so even as work sucks more, there are fewer off ramps, and more competition (lower wage). Because of various factors (employers inquiring after past compensation, lower confidence and risk taking), your wages may be depressed for the rest of your career.

Oh! And there may a dearth of personnel at a particular level of experience in your field forever (because companies didn’t hire junior staff during the recession). This is a big problem in civil engineering.

Years later, all the smartypantses will tell you you missed the best opportunity to buy (because you didn’t have cash).

Image credits: CFLuke

#17

I’m more interested to know what an economic boom is like, feels like I’ve seen nothing but recession all my working life.

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#18

That the only way out of it and the only way to end it is to quickly and thoroughly get democrats back in control.

You can look at the historical record on this going back to the Great Depression, every recession aside from a mini one with Carter began under republican rule and was then fixed with democrat regulation.

There’s a trend now on TikTok of genz asking millennials how they got through the Bush Jr recession, know what we did?..we f*****g ended it by voting for Obama. We didn’t blather on about the lesser evil, we showed up and voted.

#19

In 2008, my husband lost his family’s decades old construction business. He couldn’t even get a bag boy job for a few years. Unemployment was $275 a week. I took on 2 jobs (nursing) so we didn’t lose our house. His credit is still messed up as he borrowed from personal credit cards to make payroll and pay for supplies. Families up and down our block lost homes. No one was in any restaurant or store. No one bought a home or car. So scary.

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#20

I ve been through a few.   The one in 2008 was the hardest.   My husband lost his job and didn’t get another one for 6 months.  He applied everywhere.   You will learn what you can live without.  Start looking at your expenditures today and stop spending money where you can.   Cut off services and pay off credit cards and whatever bills you can. You can live with a lot less than you think you can.  It’s about to get really bad I fear and you need to take a long hard look at where you spend your money.  .

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#21

The constant unending, 24/7 stress of it all. If you keep your job, you’re stressed every minute about losing it. If you lose your job, you’re constanlty trying to find a job that isn’t there. You can’t even get hired at Burger King. One obviously sucks worse than the other, but either way, you are at high alert for months on end and it is exhausting.

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#22

I’m an economics major, and people always ask me why they cant just get rich buying cheap equity during a recession. The truth is, most of us will need every dollar possible to keep our lives going. Buying stocks isn’t really an option when you’re living pay-cheque to pay-cheque.

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#23

Companies will use it as an excuse long after it’s over to give paltry raises & bonuses, giving a line that you’re lucky to get anything at all.

#24

I went from being a college professor to working as a dish washer 1000 miles away.

I was a mechanic as an undergrad but those jobs were hard to get. The aero-space jobs that begged me to come disappeared. The same companies wouldn’t even let me solder circuits.

Image credits: TheNatureBoy

#25

That many people will be brainwashed into blaming everybody for their lot in life except the people actually causing it.

#26

How ruthless some people will be in taking what they want from others.

And how close some communities will become when facing a common adversity.

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#27

Knowing we will never fully go back to where we were as a society. The cuts made in the name of a recession never come back 100%. If you manage to keep your job, you’ll be doing the job of 3 during the recession and the job of 2 afterwards, at best. Good businesses will crumble but mega corps will ride it out and take the market share on the rebound.

Image credits: BuddyBiscuits

#28

It’s temporary for the lucky, permanent for the many.

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#29

I’m worried that people aren’t prepared for the loneliness of having no money to go out with friends. A lot of things are low-cost or free, but eventually you just can’t make it work. Some friends are understanding and others aren’t. Resentment is easy to build up. Some formerly intensely-close friend groups of mine never really recovered.

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#30

It’s not just about losing a job… it’s about losing options.
When everyone’s hiring, losing your job is rough but survivable. In a recession? You’re competing with hundreds of others for the same position. Suddenly, you’re overqualified, underpaid, and praying someone calls you back.

Image credits: dreamy-bubbles

#31

They don’t understand how broke everyone is. They think that they will buy houses with low rates, have tons of money but it doesn’t work that way for most people. Most people are barely making it and afraid.

Image credits: losingthefarm

#32

There are so many people after jobs it is crazy. During the 08/09 crash I went to subway and asked for an application after getting laid off from the oilfield. They said the entire box of 500 were handed out that morning. It was 11am. There were zero jobs to be had and that is coming from a college educated helicopter pilot that could not get a minimum wage job anywhere.

#33

Life gets put on hold for a lot of people. Young adults living on their own and hoping to buy a house soon, instead move back in with their parents. Vacations get cancelled. People postpone or cancel their weddings because someone is unemployed or the money dried up. People hold off and having kids because the money isn’t there.

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#34

We bought our home in 2001. By 2008, the prices dropped by HALF! Thankfully we didn’t need to move and were able to recover.

But for people that had to move, it was horrible.

Lots of foreclosures, short sales etc.

I do feel housing prices are too high and need to come down, but ideally it needs to be gradual.

Image credits: FallAspenLeaves

#35

The way all the things you appreciate about where you live disappear, to be replaced by empty buildings or corporate chains. The nonprofits, the friendly neighborhood joints, all gone. It really destroys the soul of a place. .

#36

Anyone with a tiny bit of power over you at work becomes a total c**t because you can’t quit.

#37

Empty neighborhoods with for sale signs on almost every house. Businesses closed up that had been there for years. The government screwing around with unimportant bs while families of 4 were living in their cars. Rich people and companies buying property for pennies on the dollar. Lines at the food banks.

The rise of equity firms buying property, business, almost anything and dismantling them to sell off the pieces.

And I think it’s going to be so much worse this time. I don’t have numbers but anecdotally more people are renting a place to live, leasing their cars and tied to subscription services. They haven’t had a fair chance to buy anything to build up equity. We don’t own as much that we can sell (if we can find a market for it) in an emergency.

US health care is designed to suck every last dollar out of the elderly, especially at end of life. Previously, there was a transfer of that generational wealth to the younger generation. Yes, there are ways around it for those who can afford lawyers to draw up trusts, etc. but most people can’t. That money isn’t transferring down for the middle and lower classes.

It’s going to be really rough this time.

#38

How indiscriminate it feels.

One person or family can be out of work for an incredibly long time and really suffer while another isn’t impacted at all. If you’re in the latter category and have empathy it can lead to pangs of guilt when you’re spending money on luxuries like going out or vacation so some people pull back a bit from that which worsens the recession.

#39

People will argue endlessly for the entirety of the recession whether we are actually/still in the recession.

#40

Scarcity is not some unifier, in my opinion. It corrupts people and pulls people apart, even people who care for each other. My parents were divorced but had always presented a united front. During the financial crisis, my dad’s company went under and that united front completely fell apart.

#41

Hobbies dry up. Even if you keep a job not everyone will have the money to do the hobby you like. As a result the hobby shops close.

I was an avid paintballer in the 2000s and that sport took 10 years to recover.

The mountain bike specialist in my town closed up shop.

The race track down the road went under.

#42

Unavailability of things.

You think you have everything until you need something, and realize you now have no way to get it, and if you can find it, the price has inflated to the point where you have to carefully weigh if it is worth it.

Self-sufficiency in any areas possible will ease the struggle a bit, but our lives are built on convenience in the modern era, and if it gets as bad as predicted, it’s going to be very eye opening for the majority of us.

With that being said,

Stockpiling creates unavailability, while yes its better for you to ensure you have everything you need than to risk someone else having what you need, it is also worth learning alternative ways to get what you need, whether that means creating things for yourself, producing your own food/electricity, etc.

#43

In a recession, it’s really hard to find a job.

If you lose your job, you may lose your home.

It will be a really bad thing for people who lose their job or are unable to find one.

#44

The best way to describe the “vibe” of a recession is the old game of musical chairs. The music stops and some people have a seat and some don’t and it’s capricious and arbitrary sometimes. And you hope the music starts up again.

#45

How everyone feels it but while you’re experiencing it, it feels like the world is going on like normal. People are still eating at restaurants. People are still going to Disney World. And you’re sending out your 100th resume for the day wondering how you’re going to get dinner.

#46

In prior recessions my family were the “lucky ones.” My husband and I kept our jobs. Pay was cut, but we survived. We did lose money selling our house and had to tighten our belts, but we were comparatively unscathed.

My brothers both struggled with unemployment. One moved in with his in-laws with his new baby. The other lost his home and suffered a mental break. A lot of friends moved away to find work. I’m a tax accountant, and I got really good at handling the reporting for short sales and foreclosures.

The thing is, it’s not like most Americans have been flying high before this latest kerfuffle. Most are barely getting by. The roaring economy has largely stayed with the very wealthy, so I don’t know how much more the average citizen can take.

#47

Hopelessness, fear, and hunger!

#48

That people can do everything “right”. Have more than the suggested amounts in the bank, be debt free, and be at the wrong place at the wrong time and end up bankrupt and homeless without having done anything wrong. Just one failure *around* them, a business, a bank, a job, a medical emergency, and it can all come crashing down and burn through any prep you may have done.

#49

The housing foreclosures. People leaving their keys in the mailbox in my neighborhood and moving out West abruptly. The notices in the doors and windows. Where I lived it would be one foreclosed house every couple houses. The ghost town feeling was wild. 

Also the d***s. People get into them more during recessions. Overdoses go up. 
Chronic pain doesn’t disappear just because your job does. That lasts. People get prescribed d***s to deal with it and some wind up selling a lot more of them to make up for lost income. More of it gets into community.

These are my recollections of 2008-2009.

Edit: more context.

#50

Some times I see the Gen-Z style anti-work stuff and I empathize 100% – pay is low, bosses are s**t, companies are unreasonable, prices are higher than ever. But as a millennial who graduated and entered the workforce during the Great Recession I can only ever empathize, but cannot totally think about work the way they do – there’s a cavalierness (that’s not exactly the right word I think) but like an an ability to be let yourself be free and witty about it – that you lose if you’ve ever gone through an economic recession or depression as a working adult. It’s never “haha right on” to those antiwork memes it’s always “haha right on*” with the asterix. That specter hovers over you for the rest of your working life.

#51

They typically only last about 6 months or so. But everything basically stops. Everyone feels like they’re blacklisted from jobs because no one calls. Some get lucky and they ride it out, others not so much.

Keep your job until we reach the other side.

#52

You can’t buy fun anymore. Good luck to all these consumption based influencers. Either the sponsors cut you off or you look like an insensitive p***k for living the high life while the mood is wrong. The music stops either way.

#53

Municipal services are cut. Stuff sales tax pays for. Libraries. Transit. Food pantries. The stuff people need most when they lose their job goes away at the same time. Then a year later property tax assessments come in lower and you get cuts in schools, roads and trash services too .

#54

The film, Up in the Air, did a good job showcasing what a recession looks like. Tons of empty offices, mass layoffs, people threatening s*****e when fired, one front desk person doing everything. It was accurate.

#55

Employers become insanely a*****e with power trips because “if you don’t like it you can quit”. They know it’s impossible to get hired and there’s a line of 500 wanting your job. You will be forced to work part time with a requirement of being available for any hours, any shift (as in cant have a second job). Oh you dont like it well you can quit. Same employer will schedule you anywhere from 4 hours to 31 hours, but never full time so you can never qualify for benefits. 

Moving or changing skill set is the only way out. Recession is being locked into a house or situation you cant afford to live in OR sell, simultaneously.

Recession is eating and still being hungry, because all you can afford to buy with couch change seriously lacks real nutrition.

Recession is repurposing literally everything. Imagine saving soda cans or liter bottles to plant herbs in just so you can get micronutrients for all the ramen noodles. Furniture tossed to the curb in rich neighborhoods becomes a second hand pickers delight. Flea markets become vibrant with activity. 

Recession is the domestic a****r’s playground.

Recession is sewing patches onto clothes instead of buying new ones. Decorative patches become a creative way to turn a bummer situation into creative expression.

Recession is when children have to work to survive.

#56

All the “summer jobs” that “highschool and college kids work” are full of full time low paid 40-60 year old career folks who got laid off of their actual jobs and had to make ends meet. Good luck as a total n00b finding a summer job.

#57

To be a little more positive than many, I was close to a lot of problems in the GFC, and it is a split outcome.

The big thing I learnt was that 90% of the population are entirely unaffected. They still go to school, collect their pension, go to work, go on holiday.

The unfortunate remaining, say, 10% get all of the pain, and have their lives turned upside down.

It is a terrible thing if you are one of the minority, but we shouldn’t live in fear of an inevitable economic cycle, we should just do what we can to help those affected.

#58

It’s not just the fear of losing your job, but that fear complicated by knowing you won’t find another job any time soon if you lose this one. Your competitors aren’t hiring either.

#59

No work. Great time to buy investments.
Yeah think about how that might benefit only certain classes.

#60

If our customers lose confidence and start cancelling our backlog of orders. Going through multiple layoffs and always afraid you’ll be next. Having survivor’s guilt. Having to take on more responsibility because fewer people are left. Watching places going out of business.

#61

U better hold onto the job or jobs you have, even if it’s horrible. Seen it in 2008, it’s happening now- by the end of 2025 if you ain’t working, you’re screwed. Benefits have been horribly cut in the past month- but no one is talking about it. U better be physically, mentally able to move and compete for menial jobs- cuz it’s here. .

#62

That the rich use that time to improve the monetary funnels into their coffers via debt.

Debt and loss of material ownership are the weapons of the wealthy to move wealth away from the working class, middle class, and the government.

#63

So many people that I knew personally lost their homes to foreclosure or was allowed by their mortgage servicer to sell the house for less than the mortgage balance. (That is called a “short sale”).

And if you sold your house as a short sale, you got a tax bill on the shorted amount that IRS considered income.

People were out of work and ran through unemployment, cashed in 401k and paid penalties.

Took any job at all that they could find.

It was bad for many people for years.

#64

Won’t have a friendly government, will have significantly more sovereign debt, and won’t have allies. Foreign countries had a significant impact on stabilizing the US.

If this continues and we hit a recession, it’s likely going to be so much worse.

#65

That they come when young workers are too ignorant to see it coming, then as able body adults, they fight against the policies that prevent it from happening again.

#66

That GDP-per-capita is not, and has never been, a diagnostic indicator of a recession. The right-owned media has lied to people endlessly over the past decade to the point that a significant portion of the populations believes we were in a recession the last few years despite something like 18 consecutive quarters of GDP growth (speaking for Canada).

People have no idea what a recession even is anymore.

#67

Medicaid gets cut. Kids and their entire families don’t get health or dental care. Often those are families fleeing domestic violence, surviving a major disaster or life event, dad died, or they just didn’t get the help they needed to barely scrape by. For those of us lucky enough to live in cities with free healthcare programs, the wait is a long time. I work at a homeless shelter for kids, and in 2008ish we saw a lot of families with no health insurance.

#68

I was a teenager when the great recession hit. It took years to find my first minimum wage job that would be normal for a teen to get, as so many adults were working those fast food and retail jobs. I’m not trying to demean anyone over the age of 35 who is currently working at Sonic or anything, but during that time “real adults” were effectively the only people who were working those jobs in my hometown. Us teens generally had a lot of idle time on our hands unless we were actively involved in extracurricular activities (which many people couldn’t afford). I have worked with teens in recent years and most have part-time jobs for at least a little while. 

It’s minor in comparison to those who were struggling to put food on the table, but that was my direct experience of the recession. .

#69

That the effects of a recession don’t end with the recession, especially if you are entering the job market during the recession. That the loss of earnings that comes with a recession, for many people, is something that stays with them for the rest of their working life.

#70

That it snowballs. People lose their jobs, so then others are afraid of losing their jobs. Both groups stop spending money. That causes businesses to suffer, so then people lose their jobs, so then people spend less, and on and on. Especially at certain tipping points.

#71

Sometimes you never recover. Entire places change hands. I had to leave my city and so did tens of thousands of others – what do you think that does to the continuity of a place and the people who once lived there?

#72

Expensive cars loading up with a box of food at a distribution center because you can’t eat an Audi, and no one wants to buy it for what they owe.

#73

How empty the world seems.

I lived in Reno. We were hit really badly with the recession, and even though I had a job, everything was shuttering around us. Entire business parks were so empty, I could look through all the windows of one building, through another, and down the next street. Maybe, I would see a scaffold or some painting supplies some hopeful business had abandoned.

The crazy part is, we were a city, so we still had people and other businesses, so I can’t even imagine what it was like for others in even smaller towns. COVID, things were shut down and closed, but I feel like people were at least hopeful that they would be back.

#74

Way more people are “capable” of committing s*****e than you thought. And WAY more people are closer to it than you think.

#75

When you go to parties or events, like weddings, you learn really fast not to ask people what they do for work. It is the most depressing topic for many people during a recession, as they are unemployed.

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