Economic trends

Mark Cooper started his work day on a recent morning cleaning the door handles of an office building with a rag, vigorously shaking out a rug at a back entrance and pushing a dust mop down a long hallway.

Nine months ago he lost his job as a security manager for a Fortune 500 company, overseeing a budget of $1.2 million and earning about $70,000 a year. Now he is grateful for the $12 an hour he makes in what is known in unemployment circles as a "survival job" at a friend's janitorial services company. But that does not make the work any easier.

"You're fighting despair, discouragement, depression every day," Cooper said.

Cooper's tumble down the economic ladder is among the more disquieting and often hidden aspects of the downturn. It is not clear how many professionals have taken on these types of lower-paying jobs, which are themselves in short supply. Many are doing their best to hold out as long as possible on unemployment benefits and savings while still looking for work in their fields.

About 1.7 million people, however, were working part-time in January because they could not find full-time work, a 40 percent jump from December 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And experts agree that as the economic downturn continues, the situation Cooper is in will inevitably become more common.

In his 11 years in the Washington Legislature, Rep. Mark Miloscia has supported all manner of methods to fill the state's coffers. And so it was last month that Miloscia, a Democrat, decided he might try to "find a new tax source" -- pornography.

"People came down on me like a ton of bricks," said Miloscia, who proposed an 18.5 percent sales tax on everything from sex toys to adult magazines. "I didn't quite understand. Apparently porn is right up there with mom and apple pie."

Miloscia's proposal died, but he is far from the only legislator floating unorthodox ideas as more than two-thirds of the states face budget shortfalls.

"The most common phrase you hear from the states is 'Everything is on the table,'" said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with National Conference of State Legislatures.

Nowhere is that more true than California, where state Rep. Tom Ammiano proposed legalizing and taxing marijuana, a major -- if technically illegal -- crop in the state.

"We're all jonesing now for money," he said. "And there's this enormous industry out there."

In Nevada, state Sen. Bob Coffin wants to tax the state's legal brothels, a fee that would be "based on the amount of activities." And unlike the Washington porn proposal, Coffin's plan has the backing of the potential taxpayers, in this case brothel owners. "I think they figure if they become part of the tax stream, the less vulnerable they will be to some shift in mores," he said.