This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Donna Martinez, Carolina Journal Radio Co-Host and Right Angles blogger.

RALEIGH — I got a big jolt last week, but not as big a kick in the gut as someone who can’t find a job. When I first saw the startling polling data, I thought — actually, I hoped — I’d misread the story. But I hadn’t. Only then did I realize the desperate mood taking hold in this country.

Nearly half of all adults surveyed — 48 percent — told CNN pollsters (PDF link) they think another depression is somewhat or very likely to hit the U.S. in the next year. Not coincidentally, I’d say, 48 percent also reported that either someone in their household had lost their job in the past year or they’re worried someone will lose their job in the near future.

I can relate. Members of my family are worried, too. Each paycheck is met with relief, each new work assignment with thanks. Still, worrying about something doesn’t make it reality, and I pushed the CNN poll out of my mind as an overreaction from a citizenry that’s tired of bad times.

Then came the results of the latest Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. In a news release announcing how corporate finance executives view the economy, Duke finance Professor Campbell Harvey said: “CFOs are telling us we are stuck at 9 percent unemployment for the next year. One leg of the economy is shackled by extraordinarily high unemployment and the other by the housing market still in a free fall. Obviously, it is hard for the economy to move forward.”

If you’re not seriously concerned about where the economy is headed, time to open your eyes. Nearly three years of unprecedented federal government intervention into the private sector and the expansion of the public sector’s role in our lives put us on a fast track toward a $15 trillion debt and massive private-sector job loss. Skilled, educated professionals are pounding the pavement alongside those with more modest resumés, forming a new and broader class of long-term unemployed. Families and businesses live with pervasive insecurity.

They’re people like Jim, who told his story on the Triangle radio show I co-host. Jim said he owns an engineering firm, primarily serving customers in the devastated construction industry. While he has some money coming in, things are so bad that he can’t provide the employee benefits he once did. “We’ve told them, we’ve advised them, that we’re out of the insurance business. You have to get your own,” he said on NewsRadio 680 WPTF. Jim believes the real unemployment rate, including those who’ve exceeded their benefits, is 18 percent. He said media people like me might be shocked by the percentage of Americans who see a depression coming, “But if you’re out here unemployed, you can see it coming.”

What policies would help turn things around? “Lower the taxes on the construction companies, lower the taxes across the board,” Jim told WPTF. “There’s not going to be any increase in production or building until these taxes come down.”

Jim’s idea appears to be left out of the Obama administration’s plans. Writing in The Wall Street Journal Monday, the co-chairmen of the President’s Jobs and Competitiveness Council — GE CEO and chairman Jeffrey Immelt and American Express CEO Ken Chenault — outlined recommendations for “a series of immediate, actionable steps to accelerate job creation.” The laundry list is mostly a tired regurgitation of rhetoric about the need to train workers, create “green” jobs, and help small businesses obtain loans. President Obama heard from the JCC while in the Triangle Monday.

So what’s an anxious worker to do in the meantime? If you’re like some I know, you try to weather the recession by picking up a job in retail, the sector traditionally able to absorb job seekers. No more. Consumer spending has tanked. According to a Business Journals analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on the 100 major markets, a mere eight have more retail employment than in 2008.

While the president holds meetings about the economy, American workers and business owners hold their breath. We wait for substantive steps that signal a course change to policies that foster job creation and economic growth. That means many reversals must take place: less government intrusion into the private sector, a tax code that unleashes innovation and private capital investment, and discussion that honors entrepreneurs and risktakers for their critical role in the economy.

Let’s hope real change comes before Jim’s business fails and my relatives join the 48 percent of Americans who believe a depression is likely.