But soon after, in January 2008, he lost his job. His company was shutting down much of its student loan business. Still, Mr. Blattman wasn’t worried. He received a $188,000 severance package and says, “I thought I’d find another job quickly, and actually wind up ahead.” He is well regarded in his field. Jim Murphy, a former president of the New York State Financial Aid Administrators Association, calls him “innovative, dependable, an asset to any organization.” Tony Doyle, a dean at Widener Law School, describes him as “a highly capable, dedicated professional.”

None of that matters in this economy. Mr. Blattman has been out of work ever since, 18 months. He moved to New York because he thought prospects would be better than in Florida. (“I couldn’t go back to Maryland, tail between my legs.”)

But after applying for 600 jobs, he’s had just three interviews  two of them over the phone. At the only in-person interview, for a position supervising international admissions at a Westchester County college, he was asked about salary. “I said: ‘Whatever you’re paying, I’ll take it. I understand it’s a different world now, I can adapt.’ ” The job went to someone half his age, he says.

Being single, he wants to be in New York City, but lives in a studio apartment in this middle-class suburb, because rents are cheaper. He let his online dating membership lapse because, he says, once women figured out he was unemployed, it killed things. He can walk to shopping, but often drives his secondhand S.U.V. to a grocery store two towns away just to have someplace to go. “If I walk to the store, I’m back in 10 minutes, and then what?” Last Monday, asked what he had planned for the week, he said, “As of now, I have zero planned, not a thing.”

He has enough to live on for two to three years and knows he’s luckier than many. Still, he wakes in the night, scared. “If I don’t find work by then,” he says, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”