I’m glad your family enjoys this strong obama economy. Meanwhile the rest of the citizens of the south are struggling to put food on the table.
My state & county dodged the bullet on this recession mainly because of recruiting manufacturing companies over several decades and not doing insane stunts like State Income Tax.
I know real well what it's like to be out of work and unable to find it in a bad recession. In the Fall of 1982 several things happened in my area. The 1982 Worlds Fair was a bust with investors from Memphis to Bristol and people lost their shirts. To local brothers one running an uninsured S&L the other a major FDIC insured bank went under and they went to prison so did others tied to the bank & S&L. The S&L took a lot of fortunes and life savings down with it. At the local Mickey D's the sign didn't advertise the weekly special it said Not Hiring. I took two PT jobs and went back to school on my full GI Bill to make ends meet. One job was for the V.A. for minimum wage mowing grass and digging graves with pick and shovel the other was a year stint as a Week End Warrior.
Family members working in manufacturing today are working overtime right now as much as they want. A nephew took a welding job in Texas making great money and all the O.T. he can handle. There are jobs here. It may not be the one a person wants in their specific profession but it's income.