Thursday, November 5, 2009

Long term unemployment is real

‘By February I will be in a tent,’ says one unemployed worker

As unemployment numbers inch down, the main problem in this country is lack of re-hiring and new job creation. Sure, everyone is happy the unemployment numbers are going down, but at your dinner table is Dad who has not found a job in a year, to the left of him is daughter who graduated from college and not able to find a job. Lastly, if there are any job offers the pay wage is so small that you can not even survive.

That is the reality out here and this is what the party in charge, the Democrats, must make inroads to fix this. No, matter how anyone wants to spin it, next year, 2010, we must see some inroads on Main Street or the Democrats can kiss it good-bye this time next year.

I don't like writing this, but this is just real.

Out of work, out of savings and out of things to sell, Carolyn Johansen is running out of options to keep her home even as her unemployment benefits run out.

"By February I will be in a tent," said Johansen, from Fredericksburg, Va. “My big concerns are finding homes for my German shepherd Anna and my cat Tigra and a free place to store a thousand hardback and paperback books.”

For millions of out-of-work job seekers like Johansen, unemployment insurance is providing an increasingly tenuous financial lifeline.

With jobless benefits expiring for a record number of workers, some 7,000 a day, Congress is inching closer to approving an extending federal unemployment insurance after the Senate overwhelmingly pushed the package forward Wednesday, and the House is expected to approve it and send to the White House as early as Thursday. The measure comes as state unemployment insurance funds are running low, and tight budgets are fraying the safety net that jobless workers without benefits rely on.

After losing her job last October, Johansen figures she’s applied for over 300 jobs, but can’t find anything, not even seasonal work for the holidays. A single mom with a master’s degree and a career as a librarian, she applied for work at Blockbuster this week but couldn’t get an interview. read more here....

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