Faces beyond the numbers of long-term unemployed
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In this Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012 photo, J.R. Childress searches on the computer for job opportunities at his home in Kernersville, N.C. Childress has been laid off twice since late 2009, most recently for 10 months. "Every day is a struggle," he says. "The struggle is the unknown. You've worked your way up the ladder and you get to a point in life and a position in work where you're comfortable ... then all of a sudden everything goes away. It's like being thrown into a hole and you're climbing to get up, but it's greased. There’s no way of getting out."
J.R. Childress is up before the sun, bustling about in the French colonial brick house he built. He helps pack his wife's lunch, downs some eggs or cereal for breakfast, pores over online and newspaper job listings and hopes — even prays — this will be the day when his fortunes turn around.
He's determined to stay busy, job or no job, for sanity's sake. Maybe he'll help a neighbor. Exercise. Or check out computer blueprints of construction projects around Winston-Salem, N.C., to stay connected to the world where he thrived for three decades. Childress has been laid off twice since late 2009, most recently for 10 months.
"Every day is a struggle," he says in a soft drawl. "The struggle is the unknown. You've worked your way up the ladder and you get to a point in life and a position in work where you're comfortable ... then all of a sudden everything goes away. It's like being thrown into a hole and you're climbing to get up, but it's greased. There's no way of getting out."
The frustrations of one 53-year-old North Carolina man are multiplied millions of times over across time zones and generations in a country still gripped by economic anxiety, despite increasing signs of recovery. And they resound in a presidential campaign pitting an incumbent defending his economic record against GOP opponents who are attacking it.
Unemployment in January was at its lowest level in three years — 8.3 percent — and 1.8 million jobs were added last year, compared with about 1 million in 2010. But there's still a long way to go: There are 5.6 million fewer jobs than there were when the recession began in late 2007.
About 12.8 million people are out of work and what's especially troubling, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, is the large number of long-term unemployed — more than 40 percent have been jobless more than six months.
The long-term unemployed don't fit into any neat category. They're young and old. They have high school diplomas and master's degrees. Some become so discouraged, they stop looking for a time or become mid-life college students. Others find temporary jobs, then return to the jobless rolls for long stretches. In 2011, the average length of being out of work was 39 weeks — about nine months.
But statistics tell only part of the story. They don't gauge the despair of a thirtysomething office manager who has stopped counting how many resumes he's sent out. Or the apprehension of a 60-ish tool-and-die maker who lost his job, returned to school, but still can't find work — and doubts he ever will again.
Or the rejection J.R. Childress feels, declaring that unemployment "makes you feel you're not a part of society because you're not earning your way."
Childress started working after high school, first in factories, then in construction, eventually earning a six-figure salary as vice president of operations at a company.
In October 2009, he was laid off when road construction and building projects came to a near halt. After a year without work, Childress took a huge pay cut to be a construction foreman, but that job ended last April. He's convinced he has two strikes against him: his age and lack of college degree.
"I'm putting out resumes, but they're going into a black hole," he says. Prospective employees, he says "want 33, not 53. ... They say, 'We really like you, but if we spend our time training you, when construction comes back, you're going to leave.'" He pauses, and adds: "That's not paying my bills."
Childress' wife works and their 24-year-old twins are out of college so that eases their financial burden, but he says he asks himself: "'Am I going to be 75 or 80 and not be able to retire? ... What did I do to deserve this? When is it going to turn around for me?'"
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Jerome Greene doesn't mince words when he describes life without a steady paycheck for more than three years.
"It's been like hell," he says. "It's very hard to see people leave and go to work in the morning and come home every night. It's hard to see people spending money, going out and having fun and you can't. It's very stressing. But there are people in worst situations than I have and I feel sorry for them."
Greene, about to turn 50, worked for 16 years as an Oracle software developer, most recently at a Pennsylvania company that made electronic components for cars. When he was laid off in June 2008, the recession was just taking hold, and he still had job interviews. By fall, with the economy in free fall, his phone stopped ringing.
Greene hoped the downturn would be brief and he'd weather it with unemployment benefits.
But the jobless rate hovered above 9 percent and Greene's 99 weeks of unemployment expired. He had trouble sleeping. Depression set in. Without health insurance, he took precautions — carrying hand sanitizer and his own pen when doing errands to avoid getting sick and having to pay $65 for a doctor's visit.
"There's no room for error," he says "There's no extra money."
At the same time, Greene, who is single and lives outside of Pottstown, Pa., has become an active social networker, online and in person. He participates in several groups, looking for job tips, sometimes doing presentations himself, perfecting his "elevator speech" — the 30-second pitch to prospective employers.
"Emotionally, it helps," he says. "You see that you're not alone. ... I guess you can say misery loves company. But there are positive people, too."
Mingling has other benefits, too. One holiday party led to freelance work on web development projects.
Greene is encouraged by the improving economy and has been getting calls for interviews, though they're outside the Pennsylvania area and he'd prefer to stay put. "Maybe," he says, "there is an end to this."
No matter, the experience has changed his outlook.
"It has made me very cynical when it comes to the work environment," he says. "People have to take charge of managing their careers. They should prepare for the next round of layoffs ... The rest of the world is beginning to catch up with the U.S. Companies are going to continue to outsource, they're going to continue to do stupid things ... and I don't think recessions are ever going to go away. Having a job just interrupts a job search."
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The memory stings even now for Jon Creek, all these years after the job interview.
He'd applied to be a bookkeeper at a property management company when one of the owners caught him off guard: "He said, 'You've been out of work for a year now. You can only clean the garage so many times. Why can't you get a job?'" Creek recalls.
"My answer was, 'I'm trying to get a job now,'" he says.
Creek, who lives in Mason, a suburb of Cincinnati, was a construction company office manager until he and almost everyone else at the firm were laid off in December 2007. He'd known the business was in trouble and says he actually turned down another better-paying job earlier, out of loyalty.
It took 18 months to land part-time work as an insurance agent's assistant at $240 a week — a dollar less than his unemployment checks.
A year later, Creek was stunned when a certified letter arrived with his final paycheck and notice that his job was over. Again, it was the economy. To add to the injury, his boss had posted the news on her Facebook page before telling him. "Everybody knew but me," he says.
And since she hadn't done the proper paperwork, he couldn't file for unemployment.
That was August 2010. Creek — who holds a bachelor's degree in business administration — has been looking since, worried that as time passes, someone unemployed for, say, six months may seem more appealing.
"I worked hard. I did everything right," he says. "Now I'm at the point of asking myself, 'Will I ever be able to get anything?' It's not just about a salary. It's about being able to go out and say, 'I do this. This is my identity.'"
On occasion, Creek, now 35, has become so discouraged, he's temporarily quit looking. "If you send out your resume so many times, every employer in the city has it," he says. "If you take it out of the mix for a while, perhaps you'll get noticed next time."
Being unemployed not only hurts financially — Creek has an $11,000-plus student loan — it leaves emotional scars, too. "The only people I talk to during the day are my wife, my dogs and service people," he says. "It's very isolating, very lonely."
His wife, Leslie, a financial analyst, is a constant comfort. "She tells me I'm smart, that I have a lot to offer," he says.
Creek is considering returning to school this fall to get a master's degree in accounting.
"Sometimes you feel like playing the victim card," he says, "but you really don't want to. It tells the employer you're not very confident. I tell myself good things are to come ... but it's hard to remain hopeful."
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Jean Coyle knows it's ironic that long ago, she taught college classes about retirement planning.
As a tenured professor at universities in Illinois and New Mexico, she lectured on gerontology, age discrimination and women's issues. When she was 52, she made a life-changing move, entering the seminary and leaving with two masters' degrees. In 2002, she was ordained as a Presbyterian minister.
As an associate pastor at a Presbyterian church in Washington, D.C., Coyle did crisis work, visiting homes and hospitals, counseling and preaching, conducting funerals. She expected a long career but in 2007, she lost her job in a church budget cut.
At 62, Coyle — who holds five degrees — thought she had much to offer. She applied to hundreds of churches and organizations around the country.
"I don't know if I was really naive or not, idealistic or not," she says. "I just believed I was supposed to be doing this and something would happen. There would be an opportunity."
She hoped her past dealing with the sick and dying would prove especially valuable. "I think you might find a 26-year-old seminary graduate with that experience but not often," she says. "Churches say, 'We want someone who's going to be there 20 years.'"
Coyle found a temporary staff job with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) but after three years of looking for a pastoral position, she reluctantly retired in 2010.
"I'm literally sitting in the midst of job search files that I'm finally throwing away," she says, from her home in Washington's Virginia suburbs. "I know I'm never going to be interviewed again. This is a major thing for me. It's hard to say. I'm a type-A person. I love working. I want to work until I drop and collapse at my desk. That wasn't meant to be. It's very painful, very difficult. ... The positive part is to be able to say I'm retired rather than I'm unemployed. But people often turn away and say, 'Oh you're retired.' You feel discarded. You feel invisible."
Coyle stays busy by filling in for pastors when they're on vacation or ill and participates in 13 volunteer activities — everything from pet therapy to neighborhood watch to usher at a college theater.
"I always used to tell my gerontology students," she says, "that the saddest thing in the world is to have the answers and no one is asking you the questions anymore."
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Ted Casper figured the path to a paycheck would pass through the classroom.
When he was laid off at a semitrailer plant in southern Wisconsin in spring 2009, he initially thought he'd rebound quickly. He was a skilled tool-and-die maker and had never been unemployed for more than a few days.
"I thought I'd spend a week filling out applications," Casper says, "and I'd spend my next week deciding which of the three or four jobs I would take."
He soon discovered he had misjudged. "It was a real eye-opening experience," he says. "I started looking for work and no one was looking back."
It wasn't just that he had no prospects. His wife, Gail, who has diabetes and Addison's disease, a hormonal disorder, had already lost her job at an auto dealership. And they were in the final stages of foreclosure, no longer able to make their $900 monthly mortgage payments. Their annual income had plummeted from $90,000-$100,000 to about $23,000 — mostly his unemployment checks.
Casper, then in his late 50s, followed a familiar route for unemployed blue-collar workers. He returned to school, enrolling at Blackhawk Technical College in Janesville, Wis.
Two years later, he had an associate degree in industrial engineering technology. But he was 60, and competition was fierce — and younger — with thousands of unemployed factory workers in the area, many from a recently shuttered General Motors plant.
"I got zero responses," says Casper, of Edgerton, Wis. "I literally didn't even get the form letter that goes along with the 'thank you but no thanks.'"
So last summer, Casper returned to Blackhawk to study business management.
"I kind of accepted the fact there's no employer out there that will hire me," he says wearily. He'd like to start a business — making furniture is a possibility.
Casper is philosophical about his fate.
"There are times when you realize a lot of this is my fault," he says. "There were times when I was working and wasn't saving. ... On one level, it feels like someone should be taking care of me. On the other level, I feel I should have been doing it on my own."
He just received his first Social Security check, but still hopes for another career.
"If you can't find a job," he says, "maybe you've got to go out and create one. ... There's always something ahead. You just have to reach out for it."
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Dennis Hansen sometimes wonders whether all his schooling was worth it.
An aquatics biologist, Hansen has taught college, had his research published in scientific journals and spoken at conferences from New York to Hawaii, but in recent years, he's bounced from no job to a temporary job to taking any job for a paycheck.
In late 2009, the Duluth, Minn., lab where he worked as operations manager, testing the toxicity of chemicals (and the impact on fish and water), closed because of declining business. Much of its work had come from Department of Defense contracts.
After a year without work, Hansen, 32, was hired to monitor Lake Michigan and Lake Superior water for the state and federal governments over two summers. He also had short stints as a census worker and as an extra post office hand during one holiday crush.
It hasn't been enough: Hansen says he has a $13,000 credit card debt and that's just for basics — his $600 monthly mortgage, heat and food.
"It's definitely a roller coaster," Hansen says, with the ups coming when he's done well in a job interview and the downs when there's a rejection: "That's when I'm frustrated, angry and wondering why I went to college for 10 years."
Hansen is resourceful and versatile: In college, he stocked grocery shelves, put motors in yachts and worked as a valet. Since 2009, he's applied for everything from oil field worker in Williston, N.D., to chemist in Iraq for a government contractor.
"The more money they offer," he says, "the farther I am willing to go."
Hansen says he never expected to be out of work so long, figuring his experience and research would make him a shoo-in for a job.
In December, he had an interview but lost out to someone with a Ph.D. "I was beat out by someone even more overqualified than I was," he says. In January, another rejection.
His marriage plans are on hold — "I don't want to have a potluck welfare wedding," he says — and his joblessness casts a shadow over his relationship with his girlfriend.
"We were watching the news when there was a report that the economy is getting better," he recalls. "She said, 'When is OUR economy going to get better?' That's just crushing for a guy."
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In North Carolina, J.R. Childress spends Thursday nights at his group, Professionals in Transition, where the underemployed and the jobless meet to share tips, review resumes and support one another.
Childress is casting a wide net in his job search and having learned to live on a quarter of his former salary, he says, if a new position offered "half or better, I'd consider that a bonus."
He recently had promising news — he was interviewed to be a contractor selling state license plates.
"You hope that just around the next corner or the next person you talk to is going to have something," he says. "I pray. I say show me the way. ... But you're no longer planning ahead. You're planning to get through the next day."
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Feb 13, 2012 at 7:26 a.m.
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@Walter: I believe that the level of duplicity has escalated, that the falsification of official government numbers has become more sophisticated and politicized, certainly not limited to this guy, but keep in mind it's the Chicago Way we're dealing with.
I follow an economic blog on a daily basis. There are undeniable things happening right now in the world economy that put the lie to 8.3% unemployment (a number that would have horrified us four years ago but is today considered a good thing!). Things like 1) income tax receipts are down; 2) gasoline consumption is down; 3) retail sales are down.
This economic house of cards cannot continue forever. I give you Greece.
Feb 12, 2012 at 7:52 p.m.
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Yeah!! I am all about anyone who actually realizes all of what the "new norm" is....Bob's got it right, 2nd and 3rd world existence. It has little to do with how hard you are willing to work and a lot to do with what was will never be again, largely to greed and self-centered , power grabbing politicians that would just assume sell our nation out to the Foxconns of the world, and manufacture suicide nets.
BTW- if manufacturing is really deaad, so is this nation. We will never be able to be a great nation if we dont make things here, period. You can divert education to "high tech" careers, and a large portion of the population will still never get there. Whatever happened to choice? Welcome to the new age of a service economy. That will never stand, ever!
Feb 12, 2012 at 7:15 p.m.
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I think part of this economic puzzle problem has been solved by simply reading the fine posts right here on this vast intellectual forum. A quick skim of you anonymous comment posters indicates not one writer, not one..., well, maybe I skimmed too quickly..., not one writer addressed the fact that most of the interviewees in the article were, what we all might consider..., ....'n old!
Regardless of whether the current Prez, or Ol’ Romney gets elected new Prez; or, whether Walker or some other mope is elected Wis-gov, do you fine anonymous posters really think said old unemployed or underemployed workers will be hired in the next decade?
As the kids nowadadays say – a phrase I usually loathe – “What..., ever!”
Please let me speak for the banal manic depressant, schizophrenic, bi-polar, collectively insane society, we all try to survive in these days – I lived through the last big recession, the “misery recession” of Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan – and I know bull when I see it.
So, if I may be spokesperson for the greater banal society in regards to these old scofflaws discussed in the article: “They did not plan well enough for their lame lives; they were not willing to adapt to “new norm” challenges - "new norm" meaning adapting to the new Second and Third-world life we all deal with now in America; they are lazy; they are cry babies; they need to get off their old ..... and find any job; they need to deliver newspapers to bide their time; perhaps they should just die; and…, they are probably replete with bad health baggage."
“Who would want them anyway?”
"Bottom line" – being another obfuscated term I loathe – “Why don’t these old ....... just go away!
Bob Keith – living the “new norm” paradise
Feb 12, 2012 at 6:33 p.m.
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"From my limited experience I find it hard to believe that many of these skills could be aquired by the brightest HS kids. Lots of study and experience is needed for these things."
Manufacturing is dead...almost.......we are rapidly moving to total service via high tech technology, quicker media responses in mass information in the economy and we are ill prepared as a nation to meet these future demands.......WE ARE not positioned well...many employers are finding it hard to fill these positions because some people think that turning a lever for 30 years is still in demand...
Some of these high school kids will struggle if they only rely on deposited information that has been dumped in their brains as a result of memorization and repetitive teaching methods...we need community builders and civil minded inquirers with problem solving abilities......you can be a chemistry genius but it doesn't help if you are a social moron....
Feb 12, 2012 at 6:05 p.m.
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SuperDave,
So you believe that the surveys and resulting statistics that have been compiled for over 70 years have always been falsified or is it just the Obama administration that you believe has been falsifying the results?
Feb 12, 2012 at 5:43 p.m.
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@Walter: You are correct in that the BLS conducts monthly sample surveys to estimate the number of people who are unemployed and still looking for a job, vs. unemployed and not looking for a job. Thanks for that clarification. But guess which way the administration is going to skew the numbers in an election year? They will presume that if you're not working and not drawing UC then you're not part of the labor force. In short, I don't believe their "sample survey", and I do not believe that the true unemployment rate is 8.3%. It simply defies credulity.
Feb 12, 2012 at 5:21 p.m.
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opinions- Its at least 15%....I don't know how people get these delusions that all the unemployed are counted...yeah, right...HOW??
.
I heard the one about how they take "phone surveys".......yah, puhleeeeeze......I don't know anyone who has ever been "surveyed" about their employment status by the gov't.
Feb 12, 2012 at 4:32 p.m.
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The unemployment numbers are cooked if the real unemployment figures came out. It would be more like %15 Just a election ploy to start saying the economy is better. WI government outsources more jobs to India that any other private firm that I know of.
Feb 12, 2012 at 4:30 p.m.
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""High tech computer positions fear"" Are we talking network administrators?are we talking database technicians? are we talking help desk? Network technicians? I self educated,and am continuing to do so on a constant basis. I would also love to see a kid in HS grasp SQL language, writing Javascript, or any programming language for that matter. From my limited experience I find it hard to believe that many of these skills could be aquired by the brightest HS kids. Lots of study and experience is needed for these things. This is why higher education is necessary. I know how much you hate college and think it is worthless, but honestly that is what college for, people to choose their profession and pursue the specialized education they need. Why more funding is needed for tech colleges. Because not every position is "high tech" as you put it and still is in need of skills trianing. WHich is why tech colleges are such a great tool to have for our community and many others around the state.I currently hold 7 industry certifications and am constantly pursuing more. This type of education is OPTIONAL and should be. If a kid in HS wants to be an electrician, plumber, carpenter why on Earth should they be studying dfor a microsoft deployment exam? Or a hardware/software technician position?
I currently am an IT professional so you should try to be a little more specific on that. I would also like some more specifics about how kids are graduating HS expecting "entitlements", seems like a whole bunch of rhetoric to me.
Feb 12, 2012 at 3:24 p.m.
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SuperDave,
Unfortunately, you have been misinformed, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics is here to help:
"Because unemployment insurance records relate only to persons who have applied for such benefits, and because it is impractical to actually count every unemployed person each month, the Government conducts a monthly sample survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure the extent of unemployment in the country. The CPS has been conducted in the United States every month since 1940 when it began as a Work Projects Administration program. It has been expanded and modified several times since then."
*
"Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work."
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"The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. The remainder—those who have no job and are not looking for one—are counted as "not in the labor force." Many who are not in the labor force are going to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labor force."
*
http://www.bls.gov/cps/faq.htm#Ques2
Feb 12, 2012 at 3:15 p.m.
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@garyprimer: Me too!
@WalterReuther: You said "The long term unemployed are only considered not to be part of the labor force if they stop searching for work". This is stated frequently, but unfortunately is not true. Once UC runs out, an unemployed person is *presumed* to no longer be looking for work. Think about it - how would the government know if you are looking for work if you were neither 1) drawing UC, or 2) employed. They simply presume you are "discouraged", or retired, or whatever. But you are not considered to be "part of the labor force", and therefore not counted as unemployed and presto facto! The unemployment rate comes down! It's a miracle!
Feb 12, 2012 at 2:10 p.m.
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vato -Good point yet again.
Feb 12, 2012 at 1:57 p.m.
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High tech computer positions fear.....we are too busy rolling out liberal machine heads that get told where they belong in the pyramid instead of making them think on their own....where do you think the entitlement mentality comes from?
Feb 12, 2012 at 1:48 p.m.
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""Our education system is not positioned to meet the technological changing demands of the future......why do you think we depend on foreign workers for high tech positions""
You mean like the Chinese workers at Foxconn? Where there is suicide neyts outside the dormatories where the completely underpaid, overworked labor force is forced to live?? Maybe if we had more suicide nets around peoples homes or in Apartment complexes we could pay them less (way less)and move them all into dormatories? Great Idea Vato!!
Next a good idea is to take state funding away from Technical colleges for these high tech programs. Since the education system isnt equipped to deal with it, maybe we just starve some more funding, another great Idea!!
Bums all bums!! Lazy good for nothing bums!
Feb 12, 2012 at 1:16 p.m.
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garyprimer- 100% correct.
Thats why I'm out of that game entirely.
The internet and other sources give me all the health info I need.
I don't go to hospitals or doctors for any reason.
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:45 p.m.
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The cost of health care and health insurance is what is driving this country to bankruptcy.
From the cost of caring for seniors, to employers buying insurance, to paying out of pocket, an industry whose costs are increasing at 3-5 times the rate of GDP (in a good year) is poised to consume the entire economy in a short time. You can fight it off for a while by increasing copays, limiting coverage, and kicking people out, but at some point you run out of options. The only one that really seems to be able to afford health care is the federal government and that is only because it is borrowing the money or creating the money out of thin air with paper and ink.
"Accio pecunia!"
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:42 p.m.
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I feel for these people, I was one of them for a while. After I came to terms with the situation, I worked odd jobs to get by and started my own business. This got me by until I was able to land a job in my regular profession. Sometimes you have to work 80-100 hours a week or work a dirty job until you get back onto your feet.
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:25 p.m.
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And I sure wish people would stop thinking they're "less than" just because they don't have a job.
Many of the worst crimes are committed by people with "a job".
Goodness sake, STOP with that idiocy.
Having a "job" doesn't automatically make you a good person and not having "a job" doesn't make you a bad person...That is just patently stupid.
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:20 p.m.
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vato- Good point.
The amount of money spent on education seems to have little bearing on the outcome but people want to beat that horse over and over and over that more "education funding" is needed...pfffft.
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:07 p.m.
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Walter
I believe there are too many forces in politics, on either side and including unions, that don't represent the best interests of our children.........I do feel and fear that the new budget repair law will alienate the effective teachers......we have to find a way to remove ineffective teachers......I don't know the best answers since there are many issues involved...
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:01 p.m.
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Walther, my issue in how this money is spent and utilized....there is a lot of waste in education.....the US continually outspends other countries per pupil but those countries are leaving us in the dust in math and science....
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:52 a.m.
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vatoloco,
So why is education funding one of the first thing that seems to get these days? Given your logic, doesn't that seem counter productive to you?
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:50 a.m.
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"U.S. Companies are going to continue to outsource jobs that is one part of the problem, age experience and job skills, also contribute to the reason people have a hard time getting a job."
Our education system is not positioned to meet the technological changing demands of the future......why do you think we depend on foreign workers for high tech positions......pushing a lever or turning a knob doesn't cut it anymore...
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:36 a.m.
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SuperDave,
The long term unemployed are only considered not to be part of the labor force if they stop searching for work.
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:34 a.m.
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The reality is there's just not going to be as many jobs as there used to be. Automation is one of the reasons for this. Another reason is that the recession showed employers that more productivity can be drained from their current workers without paying them more. This is the labor landscape we are now living in. The question now is what can we do for the people left on the sidelines: the long term unemployed, both old and young, like the ones in this article?
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:29 a.m.
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I hope all these people find jobs again and can get back on their feet. It's still really hard out there right now.
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:25 a.m.
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Bums all bums! Get off your keester and work hard for 10 bucks an hour. THEN only then will you be successful.
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:24 a.m.
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I am curious as to what the Republican economic plan is, Dave.
Depending little on which candidate is speaking,
what I am getting is abolish taxes and abolish government
(standing Ovis by the aries).
Feb 12, 2012 at 10:58 a.m.
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If you have the internet you should be able to continually educate yourself and also make money.
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"Life is hard; It's harder if you're stupid." - John Wayne
Feb 12, 2012 at 10:42 a.m.
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U.S. Companies are going to continue to outsource jobs that is one part of the problem, age experience and job skills, also contribute to the reason people have a hard time getting a job. A young person out of college has a better chance of landing a job than say anyone above age 40. I will be 44 years old this year and I like the people in the article wonder if I will be able to even retire at 65 or even 67. I think about that every day as I go to work. I also wonder if my job will last that long I hope it does but I still worry because I thought my job would last but I was wrong. And at the time I did not know how long it was going to take me to land a new job.
Feb 12, 2012 at 9:38 a.m.
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Interesting stories from the front lines, I have a lot of respect for these people. It takes a lot of guts to just carry on.
But I couldn't let the setup part of the article pass without comment: "...in a country still gripped by economic anxiety, despite increasing signs of recovery. And they resound in a presidential campaign pitting an incumbent defending his economic record against GOP opponents who are attacking it.
Unemployment in January was at its lowest level in three years — 8.3 percent..."
Increasing signs of recovery? This economy is the worst in my lifetime, probably the worst since Hoover was president.
And an incumbent defending his record (!) and the GOP attacking it - as if either view is equally valid! The Food Stamp President hasn't a leg to stand on when it comes to economic issues.
And lastly, the lowest unemployment rate in three years (8.3%)...c'mon Ms. Cohen, we all know that people out of a job long term (like most of those in this very article!) are no longer counted as unemployed! The job situation has been so bad for so long that the rate is now falling precisely because of those who have been out of work long-term are no longer considered to be a part of the labor force. Dig a little deeper lady!
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