Mary Kay Gurbis says she's been fortunate.
Fortunate her daughter Christine's thyroid cancer was discovered and treated. Fortunate that when the 23 year old's illness finally forced her to leave her job at National City Bank and move home, there was a family business to pick up her medical coverage. But the last seven years have been a long road, and now retirement is on hold.
GURBIS: "I don't know. I mean, what would do if I wasn't working? I would...yeah. You know, it will work out. The most important thing is that she's doing better...she was worth it. She was very expensive though.Very expensive."
Christine's insurance premiums were about $20 a paycheck at the bank, but when she left her medical coverage jumped to over $800 a month. Now her mother says Christine will always have daily deep-muscle injections. And a scan to make sure the cancer's gone is scheduled for next year. At 30, Christine is still living at home, and is back on the family payroll. Retirement may yet be a possibility.
GURBIS: "Because we have a family business, maybe she can kind of move in and supplement and my husband and I can move out a little bit. We've never forced any of our children into the business, but maybe, maybe this is a fit."
Gurbis'' story was echoed among the audience members. Fifty percent of those polled during the discussion said they will fall short of achieving some element of the American Dream or they've given up on the idea altogether...
Akron social worker Jennifer Samardak was on the panel. She worries that her 3 percent raise won't cover food and fuel costs that continue to rise and a student loan debt that will be with her for decades.
SAMARDAK: "I don't live extravagantly. I think the middle class means feeling safe with where you are, which would be a three to six month buffer zone between having what you have and losing everything. Right now I have about a month."
The professionals on the panel -- Akron U. President Luis Proenza, Lt. Governor Lee Fisher and former US Senator Mike Dewine, had no immediate answers for those on the edge of financial trouble, or to the central question audience members seemed to be raising. Will they be able to retire without worry and will good jobs be available for their children and grandchildren.
Instead, their focus turned to education, although none of the men could say what courses of study would be needed in the future. Here's Fisher.
FISHER: "Dr. Proenza is educating students here at the university of Akron, in many cases for jobs that do not yet exist, using technologies that have not been invented to solve problems that none of us here tonight know are even problems. I would view that as not necessarily a problem. I would view that as an opportunity."
Beacon Journal Managing Editor Doug Oplinger spearheaded this year-long series of forums and articles addressing the plight of the middle class. He said the project helped people examine the possibility that maybe they could or should learn to live with less.
OPLINGER: "I think there was a realization that this idea of the American Dream was freedom and now it's stuff, and maybe we need to reevaluate that."
Oplinger acknowledged that no answers were found at this meeting, but he says such discussions are important. The community dialogue and the search for solutions will continue at future forums.
Kymberli Hagelberg, 90.3
You can find the complete forum, and the Beacon's stories, on the paper's website, www.ohio.com.