I have several friends who are having trouble finding employment because the job market has cratered, including one friend who just finished a PhD and had trouble finding even a crappy job because the federal government was firing so many people in her field at the same time. She would've had to leave the U.S., because she's not a citizen yet. Another friend took a job in New Zealand instead of locally, partly because he's also not a citizen. I worry about such friends, whether their visas will get revoked, or worse, ICE will come for them. Also, I worry about LGBT friends, and friends with health concerns who have care only because of the Affordable Care Act.

My own job is secure— for now. The university department that I work for gets a lot of funding from tuition, in addition to research grants. However, several of my grant-funded co-workers (seeing the writing on the wall) have quit, and a number of potential graduate students have had to decline our offer to study here. There's been a wave of faculty retirements, or faculty leaving for endowment-funded universities. The whole campus faces budget cuts, and research getting shut down. I can forget about a raise; and cost-of-living adjustments— who knows?

Meanwhile, groceries (among other things) are noticeably more expensive, and my taxes will be going up, so that's neat.