A New Christmas Carol

Unemployment and anxiety are her Christmas present, the comfortable past merely a shadow. But Stacie Miller is determined to make her future bright.

Mailman!

"Here, Mom." Caitlin, her 8-year-old, drops a stack of letters on the kitchen table.

Stacie Miller sees the pile, takes one sip from a Dr Pepper.

Credit card: Three months overdue.

Water bill: The utility company threatens to terminate service.

Baltimore Gas and Electric: Electricity, off in two weeks.

Student loans: Payments begin March 1.

"Oh darn," she laughs - a small, hard laugh. "Good news all over the place."

"What's that?" Cassie, her 10-year-old, is pointing at one of the documents.

"You've got homework, Cassie," Stacie says, shooing her away. "Caitlin, you too!"

Last spring, when she turned 30, Stacie had dreams. She spent 10 years going to school part-time to earn a bachelor's degree in computer systems, sacrificed to find a job near the girls' school in Annapolis so she could volunteer in the classroom and be no more than 10 minutes away if they needed her. The job, working on a computer help desk at ARINC Inc., had not matched her ambition, but it was decent money and an honest start.

And now? Gaining weight, anxious, on the brink of a hard fall from the middle class. Worst of all, for the past four months since being laid off in August, only five job interviews.

Merry Christmas, Stacie Miller.

"Mommy!"

Cassie has discovered the poinsettia.

"Pretty flowers, mommy!" she says. "How many did you buy?"

Stacie decided she would really celebrate the holidays this year. Last night, she draped lights around a bush outside the door and traced an upstairs window with a strand of tiny white bulbs. She scraped up some money to buy one poinsettia, and hopes to earn enough cash from her Friday delivery job at Vizzini's Pizza to buy the girls a real Christmas tree. The artificial one she found on the street can just stay in the closet.

Caitlin and Cassie join her at the kitchen table to do homework. Stacie pushes the mail aside when the phone rings. It's about a job.

"Mommy, check my spelling," says Caitlin.

"Can Caitlin come out and play?" asks a little boy standing outside their open window.

Cassie has picked up her flute and practices scales.

"You said it's a three-month contract?" Stacie struggles to hear. "Sixteen dollars an hour?"

Quick, Stacie! Multiply, divide, subtract - it's a big cut compared with what you had, but the rent's due in three weeks ... the car wouldn't start yesterday ... the computer's on the fritz. And it's only three months ... you got a call that morning about a permanent position at T. Rowe Price in Owings Mills ... you'd have to quit your weekend work ... could you be home in time to meet the girls after school?

Quick, Stacie, quick ... don't sell yourself short.

"Mommy!" Cassie calls. "Mommy?"

Caitlin chases Darwin, the dog, out the door.

Lillian, the cat, climbs off the refrigerator and dips a paw into a cold pot of leftover pasta sitting on the counter for supper.

Quick, Stacie. You'll have to call Brian for a reference ... you don't have anything to wear? ... it's in Lanham, 30 miles away? ... can you live on $16 an hour?

Go on! Say yes. Yes!

"OK," she tells the recruiter. "OK, 1 o'clock tomorrow. OK."

As of Dec. 1, the nation's unemployment rate had reached 5.7 percent. Economists say that since March, 1.2 million Americans have lost their jobs. Some predict the rate will climb to 6.5 percent by next summer.

What experts don't tell you is who these people are or how their lives have changed, whether someone was on the way up or on the way down. They don't tell you how it affects a single parent or what it does to children or what happens when a person can't fill prescriptions anymore or what they do when they can't pay their rent and the car breaks down.

They only talk numbers. Because that's the bottom line on unemployment: Numbers.

For Stacie, it's about numbers, too. She leads a very quantitative lifestyle.

"I've got a paycheck coming Friday from my weekend job - that's $350," she says. "Rent is $875. I took out a loan from ARINC to pay off debts from the last time I was laid off - that's $50 a month. Unemployment paid $280 a month, but that stopped once I got the weekend job. I earn about $75 on Friday nights when I deliver pizza, and Matt [McAllister, a roommate] pays $300 each month for rent. If I had to pay for a baby-sitter or day care, I wouldn't be here today, but Matt watches the girls if I have to go out, so I save money there. And my parents have helped a lot. My Dad gave us $150 to buy the girls some clothes. The last time the car broke down, he paid for that - $600 - and when we were driving home from Thanksgiving and the muffler started acting up and he paid $300 for that. Then I've got $37,000 in student loans, $4,000 in interest ... "

Her mind does endless computations. She has so many bills - groceries, gas, doctors, utilities, rent - that cannot be paid on time that she juggles numbers in her head constantly, deciding to pay what she can, when she can, and scheduling priorities according to which emergency erupts first.