Sandra of Cleveland Heights shared her story. She lost her job in April, the third time she has been laid off. “I am 59 years old and I never thought I would find myself in this position at this age.
“I used up all my retirement funds and savings getting through the last two layoffs rather than default. I was terrified of losing my home and went deeper in debt. Now I’m laid off again and when my unemployment runs out I will end up defaulting. Being an older worker makes it even harder. I spent a lot of years as a community organizer and have never seen anything this bad in this country.”
Mary of Dayton: “I have been unemployed since 2008. I have gone through my retirement, savings and unemployment benefits. I just paid the last month of rent that I am able to afford. After that, my disabled son is going to live with my 86-year-old mother, and who knows where I will end up.”
Their accounts are part of a report, “Hardly Working: Stories from Un- and Under-Employed Americans,” released Friday by the National Employment Law Project and USAction, a coalition of 23 state-based organizations. Unemployed workers sent almost 1,200 stories to USAction. The report focuses on the plight of 89 people from all regions of the country.
Read the report (usaction.org), and the anguish, despair and desperation echo. You feel the fragility, a household in its daily routine, and then, the blow, the bottom falling out.
A handful of leading themes emerge, starting with the wreckage among older workers, facing what amounts to age discrimination. They have abundant skills, even advanced degrees, yet as the months of joblessness mount, they are viewed as damaged goods. Another thread highlights a “lost generation” of young people, fresh from college, burdened by student loans and unable to find work in the fields in which they trained.
Kathleen of Maryland: “I have been asked more than once, ‘If you have a master’s, why do you want to work here?’ ”
Add distress, the financial strain and the emotional pain. The participants talk about depleting their savings, about eventually working until “we are at least 75 years old,” about the prohibitive expense of health coverage and treatment, about children returning to live with their parents and parents having no choice but to live with their children.
Easily the saddest story comes from Jean of Ohio, about her brother, age 59, losing his job for a second time, his company down-sizing. He searched for another job for more than a year. Yet, ultimately, he gave up, his retirement funds exhausted, hanging himself in the attic of his home, “leaving his wife, children, family and friends desolate.”
Those in elected office have the task of making choices to benefit the whole. They cannot please everyone. People must take responsibility for their lives. Yet the “Hardly Working” report puts a necessary face on the immense ruin of the recession, four years after its start, more than two years since its technical end, ordinary, play-by-the-rules men and women still reeling from the blow.
The report complements the unemployment numbers released last week. If there was good news, the rate dropping to 8.6 percent, the lowest level in two years, plus such glimmers as an increase in help wanted ads, look deeper, as many economists urged. A troubling 315,000 people dropped out of the labor force.
The country has a jobs deficit of 10.9 million. That includes the 6.3 million lost in the recession and yet to be recovered, along with the 4.6 million needed to keep up with working-age population growth.
Of those still searching for work, 42 percent have been without a job for six months or longer, a staggering share. The average length of unemployment stands at an all-time high of 40.9 weeks. Note, too, that the labor force participation rate dropped last month from 64.2 percent to 64 percent. A year ago, it was 64.5 percent.
The construction industry, often an early driver of recoveries, remains battered, the housing collapse resulting in the loss of 2 million jobs. So far, 47,000 have been recovered.
All of this has unfolded against a backdrop of wrenching change, going back decades, globalization and new technology rich in opportunity yet altering dramatically the landscape of employment. The country must respond better, from education and training to research and development. What those long without work deserve immediately is a realistic extension of unemployment benefits, due to expire at year’s end.
Ideally, this step would be combined with a renewed payroll tax cut, aid to cities and states, plus other measures to bolster demand and the economy. What should be stressed is that Congress never has let benefits expire when the jobless rate was higher than 7.2 percent.
More, a study from the Urban Institute found that such unemployment assistance generates $2 in economic activity for every $1 spent. It works for all of us.
Then, there is Linda of Cherry Hills, N.J., declaring simply the need: “Unemployment compensation has been critical to our financial survival during the past two years.”
Douglas is the Beacon Journal editorial page editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3514, or emailed at mdouglas@thebeaconjournal.com.
