Hard Times Catch Up with Well-Heeled Jobless

Time and money is finally beginning to run out for large numbers of people who lost their jobs, and have been living off hefty severance packages for up to two years. Many workers who received generous exit packages from the financial and auto industries kept on spending the way they were used to in the expectation of soon finding another job, and are now getting desperate, the Wall Street Journal reports.

More than a third of people who are out of work have been seeking work for more than six months, and many people who lost high-end jobs are only now beginning to realize that they may have to accept permanently reduced circumstances. "It will be D-Day" when the money runs out in a few months, one unemployed finance professional says. "But on the outside, no one has any idea that we're in trouble." (More auto industry stories.)