Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs

New York Times ^ | February 20, 2010 | PETER S. GOODMAN

[ricks_place]

BUENA PARK, Calif. — Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.

Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

Here in Southern California, Jean Eisen has been without work since she lost her job selling beauty salon equipment more than two years ago. In the several months she has endured with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check, she has relied on local food banks for her groceries.

She has learned to live without the prescription medications she is supposed to take for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She has become effusively religious — an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material — finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.

[ketsu]

With the environmental anarchists calling the shots, the US has been moving manufacturing jobs offshore for years. Now the chickens come home to rest. With open borders, all “the jobs that Americans wouldn’t do” are now filled by illegal immigrants.

We still have not learned our lessons, since the environmentalists still object to drilling for oil or natural gas. When will we learn America. Look at the country which we used to be.

Environmentalism is not the cause. Globalization is. Capital always tries to maximize its return on investment. As soon as technology improved enough and China opened up American manufacturing was doomed.

Environmentalists are a pest, but only a pest. The causes of America's decline are far deeper and transcend both parties.

[ketsu]

Anyone that thinks that things are goung to get better is living in a fool’s paradise. For the economy to gey better three things have to happen: 1)Abolish the EPA.2) Get obama and the Democrats out of office. 3) Cut taxes. I do not believe any of the three will happen.

Regulation is not the US's problem, like I said earlier, globalization is. The US still has much less regulation than Europe and despite the Greek mess Europe has managed to weather the current downturn much more effectively. This comes partially from using crippling taxes on workers to finance the unemployed as well as making it nearly impossible to fire people. Capital can't flee nearly as easily either because of the huge tariffs on stuff coming in from outside the Euro zone.

When you globalize like the US has, jobs go away and they never come back because it will *always* be cheaper do produce things in a third world sweatshop. The remaining jobs will be done by illegals because they're cheaper too.

Again, like I said the problems transcend parties. The problems are fundamental to the globalist way of doing things. Until this changes the current trend of outsourcing and bringing in illegals will continue until the US market isn't worth it anymore and the process will repeat in whatever the next big market is, which will probably be China.

[ricks_place]

I hope that you don't ever lose your job.

Can't lose a job I don't have. Brother can you spare a dime?

Obama's policies have sucked up all the investment cash from the economy and obligated future payments to foreign bond holders. Those future obligations payments will bankrupt the nation with no course correction.

Obama's 2011 budget request includes $1.4 billion granted to the developing nations fighting climate change and limiting carbon emissions when man caused global warming is a total fraud. This one item represent 0.1% of the budget deficit. This one item is a window into the crazy Democrat spending. Government spending needs to be brought under control by deleting the wasteful and unnecessary line items.

Obama created the “Bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” to provide cover for a tax increase. The Obama tax increase will be the coup d’grace for jobs in the United States.

Increased Taxes and Increased Borrowing does not bode well for Future Jobs. Any Unemployment Complaint is with the Democratic Congress and President Obama.

[NoExpectations]

breathtaking

[Southack]

You do not understand the current climate. I’m sorry, but cheap Chinese labor isn’t any more effective today than free slave labor was for the South before the Civil War.

Automation, such as the invention of the cotton gin, mass production of firearms, steam engine, telegraph, to the Internet, CNC machining, and robots on assembly lines beats cheap labor everytime.

Automation always wins. Automation always beats cheap labor.

Always. No exceptions, even.

China has advantages that stem from their under-valuing of their Yuan currency, no environmental or regulatory compliance costs, no tort risks (lawsuit lotteries), and cheap energy from nuclear, hydro, and coal power...but Chinese labor is actually more expensive than Nigerian, Cuban, North Korean, Vietnamese, and labor in India.

American companies outsource to China because we are never going to hire-up again. The old days of salaried jobs are gone, save for government positions and the existing private jobs that somehow hang on.

Sending work to China is like having a black box that delivers widgets as you stuff money into it...in that you never have to hire more American employees to get more widgets delivered.

This means no workers’ comp issues, no lawsuits, no insurance, no healthcare, no environmental compliance, no regulations...you just get your widgets delivered after paying your black box.

What the above means is that companies have a route to obtain greater production without adding new U.S. employees.

And what *that* means is that the days of salaried jobs are gone.

You’d better figure out how to make your own job instead, then. Tow truck driver. Taxi driver. Panning for gold. Logging your land. Dentist with your own office. Fisherman. Tour guide. Writing iPhone aps and selling them in Apple’s iStore. Bounty hunter. Repo cars. Repo aircraft/boats. Build boats. Build kit cars. Paint cars. Vinyl sticker cars. Write a book or pop song. Design a new swim suit. Run cattle. Put windmills on your land. Sell sod. Raise worms. Grow crops. Make ethanol. Make bio-diesel.

Make your own job...because only 1 in a thousand looking for a salaried job will get hired in the future.

[KC_Conspirator]

This is all Obama’s fault. He literally is turning America into a ghetto before our very eyes.

[dforest]

Screw you Goodman and that commie rag NYT. I am sick of you and your lies.

[KC_Conspirator]

She has become effusively religious — an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material — finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.

Naturally the NY Slimes angle is that the problem is not JOBS, but rather welfare in the form of socialized medicine.

[editor-surveyor]

"Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound"

What signs might those be?

The rebound of the economy always starts with the Nation's prime employer, small business, hiring new employees, not laying off more.

[Non-Sequitur]

Can cover all categories of ads with palm of my hand. Just very, very, very little hiring going on.

Over the last 10 years want ads have gone the way of the dinosaur. Look at sites like Dice, CareerBuilder, and Monster if you want to see where the help wanted ads have gone.

[Revolting cat!]

Every one of the 9 laid off at my dept a couple of weeks ago was over 40, two over 50, two over 60.

[Cboldt]

-- simple solution. the US should leave... [war zones] --

The historical (and easier) solution is to start wars. This benefits the warmonger in at least two ways. First, employment in crafting war machinery and building whatever gets destroyed, and also attrition in population.

The trick is to convince your populace that the war is just. That is easy too. See Iran, N. Korea, and if we push hard enough I think we could get the old USSR and China to appear as (or become) enemies.

[kcvl]

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound

I guess I missed this!

[editor-surveyor]

"If you are over age 50 and lose your professional job in these times - you may never have a professional job again..."

Unless you start your own company, and run the company that laid you off out of business!

Been there; done that.

[going hot]

Even before that, people must first have excess discretionary income, to buy more goods and services, thus creating a need for more employees to be hired to provide that stuff.

Still got a ways to go before people have excess cash to cover their basic needs, and then some.

[ketsu]

You do not understand the current climate. I’m sorry, but cheap Chinese labor isn’t any more effective today than free slave labor was for the South before the Civil War.

I think you misunderstood me. I agree 100% with your analysis. The key to China is that China is a 3rd world country(now 2nd really) without all the comparative inefficiencies that plague other 3rd world economies. Not to say that China isn't corrupt, it certainly is, but it's nowhere near as corrupt and disorganized as a typical 3rd world nation.

Until the US either switches to protectionism or figures out how to leverage its advantages the current decline will continue.

[Velveeta]

Sure hope it never happens to you.

My hubby who is 55 lost his job 10 months ago. 28 years at the same company, walk in on a Friday and you’re out. The 8 guys who were there the longest, pffft - gone in an instant. No severance, no thank you for 28 years.

Hubby is looking for anything, absolutely anything. Pounding the pavement every day for 10 months. He’s knocking on doors, not just submitting and online resume. Nobody is hiring a 55 year old guy. He applied as a fricking census taker and we’re waiting to hear back on that.

I took on a second job to make sure we could keep going. College tuition, mortgage ...you know the drill.

The market really sucks out there. Be grateful for what you have. And please don’t look down on others who are having a tough time.

[kcvl]

“She and her husband now settle their bills with only his $1,595 monthly disability check”

“she scans job listings on her computer”

“There are positions in health care, most requiring the experience she lacks. Office jobs demand familiarity with software she has never used.”

“When Ms. Eisen and her husband, Jeff, applied for food stamps, they were turned away for having too much monthly income. The cutoff was $1,570 a month — $25 less than her husband’s disability check.”

“She married Jeff when she was 19, and they soon moved to California, where he had grown up. He worked in sales for a chemical company and they rented an apartment in Buena Park, a growing spread of houses filling out former orange groves. She stayed home and took care of their daughter.”

“’’ By the early 1980s, their finances became strained, so she took a job as a quality assurance clerk at a factory that made aircraft parts. It paid $13.50 an hour and had health insurance.”

“six years ago, her husband took a fall at work and then succumbed to various ailments — diabetes, liver disease, high blood pressure — leaving him confined to the couch. Not until 2008 did he secure his disability check.”

“Their daughter has back problems and is also living on disability checks”

Jean A Eisen - Age 57
8640 Auto Center Dr, Apt 67

Buena Park, CA 90621-3725

(714) 523-1968

Household: Kerrian A Eisen, Jeff Eisen

Relatives
Jeffrey M Eisen
Keri Ann Eisen

Aliases
Jean A Eisen
Jean Ann Eisen

Address History
6 in Buena Park, CA
2 in Brea, CA
1 in Fullerton, CA
1 in Los Angeles, CA

[Southack]

see post #71 and #85.

[kcvl]

This woman’s husband and daughter are both on disability.