Monday, September 12, 2011

Jobless America


The Atlantic has published a series of articles quoting out-of-work Americans, describing their struggles to make ends meet, look for a job, and keep their spirits up. Some of the stories are pretty heartbreaking. I highly recommend the articles. There are five so far, in two series:




Here's an extract from the first article in the series.

As your job search drags on, even your friends and family are going to wonder what is "wrong" with you. Of course this is mostly motivated by sheer terror that they are going to be in the same position, despite their assurances that they are too smart or good at their job to be in your position. They may be right in some instances, but the upshot is that no one has real job security anymore, and it is devastating to many people to find out that they are totally disposable in a game they thought they could win. At least the currently unemployed know there is no winning anymore, just damage control.


Sobering stuff . . .

Some unemployed people, having exhausted their benefits and all other avenues of assistance, are now living in tent cities and communities around the nation. Business Insider recently published a photo essay on one such encampment in Lakewood, New Jersey. Here are a couple of images from their article.






There are many more pictures at the link, along with detailed descriptions. Sobering reading.

I'm also suffering from the unemployment situation, due to my work-related injury in 2004 and subsequent disability. It's proved to be a major negative factor in trying to find part-time employment since then, particularly when competing with so many able-bodied people looking for work. Miss D., too, has suffered the frustration of moving to a new state, and trying to find a job in these difficult times. We understand and deeply sympathize with the predicament of those who are worse off than we are. (We're not complaining, though: through careful use of our funds, and cutting living expenses by sharing a friend's house, we're doing OK so far. There are many less fortunate than we are.)

I'd like to encourage all my readers to please consider helping out in whatever way you can to alleviate the plight of those caught up in the present economic storm. Most of us don't think very often of those who are going to bed hungry, without a solid roof over their heads, and with no prospect that tomorrow will be any better. You and I can make a difference, if we try.

Peter

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The articles are soft-journalism, ladened with attribution by unestablished correlations and set-asides of other factors.

As email self-reported cause-effect stories it is unlikely that this handful of authors were even vetted as to factually existing, much less the facts of their stories.

Da tales? Yes. Pandemic alert from these unattributed email snippets? Don't think so.

Main lesson does seem to be that a generation who's emails selected reflect some daft idea that society owes them a living doing whatever soft useless preparations they chose in life is solidly misplaced.

A few of the emails authors even state that they trained to what they liked or what was easy, and that was a mistake.

It is a tough job market out there. No doubt about it.

And mistakes have shaper consequences in such a market.

That is life.

Best story was the PhD who worked as a janitor to bridge. Kudos to that sort of spirit and I hope their forward PhD skill-using job works out.

Saddest are those who did useless training, then thought they would substitute Volunteer "Work" for the retraining to something that was actually a wage earning skill.

They just put off the crash that was staring them in the face. Sad.