My Economy tells the story of the new economic normal through the eyes of people trying to make it, because we know the only numbers that really matter are the ones in your economy.

For this latest installment of our series, we hear from Rebecca Dunne, a music teacher and publications technician in Fairbanks, Alaska. 

My name is Rebecca Dunne and I live in Fairbanks, Alaska.

And I have two jobs: Music teacher and I also work as a publications technician for the State of Alaska, Department of Fish and Game.

I don’t make a whole lot of money but I have good benefits.

This is a University town. It’s, I think, 80,000 people in Fairbanks. So there’s a lot of really highly educated people for a city this size. And that makes for a great arts community.

I make about one-third of my income teaching music and there’s a shortage of violin teachers up here. I always have a waiting list.

When the Affordable Care Act was first passed, I was seriously considering not having this second job. I consider myself a musician first and if I could just teach music full-time, I definitely would.

But even if I made twice as much money doing that, I still couldn’t have afforded health insurance. And in Alaska, you know, it’s pretty expensive. Everything’s more expensive in Alaska.

Things are so uncertain. It looks like if the American Health Care Act actually passes, that Alaska’s gonna be in pretty bad shape. And so I’m gonna be, really, super happy that I still have employer health care.