Recession Shadows America's Middle Class

American society is breaking apart. Millions of people have lost their jobs and fallen into poverty. Among them, for the first time, are many middle-class families. Meet Pam Brown from New York, whose life changed overnight.

The crisis caught her unprepared. "It was horrible," Pam Brown remembers. "Overnight I found myself on the wrong side of the fence. It never occurred to me that something like this could happen to me. I got very depressed."

Brown sits in a cheap diner on West 14th Street in Manhattan, stirring her $1.35 coffee. That's all she orders -- it's too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.

She also needs to save money. Until early 2009, Brown worked as an executive assistant on Wall Street, earning more than $80,000 a year, living in a six-bedroom house with her three sons. Today, she's long-term unemployed and has to make do with a tiny one-bedroom in the Bronx. It's only luck that she's not homeless outright.

"One thing came after another -- boom, boom, boom," Brown recalls. "I kept getting up and dusting myself off, but I could never get ahead again. I spiraled further and further into the abyss." Her voice is trembling now. "I've done everything America told me to do. I went to school. I've never been to jail. I've kept my nose clean. My kids are great kids."

She laughs a sarcastic laugh. "And now?"

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