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The unemployment figures were so bad Friday—half a million U.S. jobs lost in one month—some in the corporate media actually sounded a bit alarmed. Still, the overriding impulse of mainstream journalists is to look on the bright side.
Like NPR, for instance, which offers a handy chart showing how unemployment was worse in the early 1980s than it is now. The chart’s cutsy title: "In Case It Makes You Feel Better," begs an answer, such as: You gotta be kidding?
Such "things could always be worse" journalism—like yeah, a plague of locusts could be in my backyard—is pretty tiresome, but imagine how it must sound to those who really are suffering from job loss?
Like Marcia in Ohio, who told the National Employment Law Project (NELP) her story:
My husband was laid off right after he had a heart attack last year. He was working for a company for five years and then all of a sudden he is permanently laid off because they aren’t selling products so his shift has got to go. He was the major bread winner in the family….He is 55 years old…and having pre-existing conditions make it impossible for us to get any insurance. The world has become selfish and cruel….His extended unemployment benefits will run short soon-run out-and then what are we to do? Starve or die I suppose.
Starve or die. But maybe if Marcia just looked at that NPR chart, she might feel better.
NELP, this week, released findings from its survey in a report: Unemployed In America. The results depict how hopeless jobless workers have become, with between 70 percent and 76 percent of those unemployed saying they have low confidence of finding a job in the next four months. The survey also shows jobless workers are willing to take just about any job, with 63 percent saying they would accept a job that pays less than the previous job and 62 percent saying they’d take one that doesn’t provide health insurance.
But there are no jobs out there. The statement by Gwendolyn in Maryland reflects what many jobless workers are saying:
I have been unemployed since November of 2007. I have literally applied for over 250 jobs, yet I still have not been able to be interviewed yet to get a full-time position. As a result of my financial woes and constant struggle to take care of three sons and make the rent, I now find myself facing the possibility of being homeless. Unfortunately, I have not been in a position to make my rent by the 5th of the month (at the latest) since being unemployed. As a result of this, I have been advised by the management company that they will not be renewing my lease. To add to my woes, my car was repossessed last night and my extension of unemployment benefits is due to end as of next month….
As more workers become unemployed, the number of overall jobs decreases. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) yesterday highlighted how rapidly the gap grew between the number of people out of work and the number of available jobs. In October, the number of job seekers topped 10 million, more than three times the number of jobs available. Which means this data doesn’t even count November’s huge job losses.
Unemployed In America also finds that 67 percent of jobless workers have cut back on spending on food and groceries and 37 percent have had trouble paying for groceries. In fact, the number of Americans receiving food stamps set a record in September, with more than 31.5 million needing food aid, up 17 percent from a year ago.
The AFL-CIO union movement long has been pushing for extension of unemployment insurance (UI) and Congress finally acted last month. But more needs to be done. In addition to investment in long-term restructuring of our nation’s economy, we at the AFL-CIO are calling on Congress to pass an economic recovery program to address the immediate needs of working families, one that must include extended and expanded UI benefits, fiscal aid for states, significant funds for job-creating infrastructure projects and an expanded food stamp program. Earlier this week, the Institute for America’s Future released a report calling for a $900 billion government boost focused on Main Street over the next two years, and we agree with such a plan.
The nation needs real solutions, not corporate gloss and cute charts, for the millions of workers without jobs here, like Victoria. She moved from California to Las Vegas to live with her daughter because she hasn’t been able to find work in a year. Despite 30 years of experience as a civil drafter and no history of unemployment, she sent out more than 200 résumés and had a total of three job interviews.
It’s always the same story: The employers say "they get hundreds of applications for the one position they have open." I have never had to depend on anyone in the past and if it wasn’t for my daughter, I would be living in my car. I really want to work. What has happened to this country is really sad when we as Americans can no longer live the American dream.
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Hey, all, Judy Conti, NELP’s Federal Advocacy Coordinator, is online and ready to join the discussion. I need to dash out, but you’ll have a great discussion with Judy.
Hi all — Judy Conti here. I’m ready, willing and able to take your comments and questions. At NELP, we call ourselves shameless advocates for the unemployed, and in my lifetime, they’ve never needed advocates more. Please do feel free to write it.
Hey Judy,
I’m one of those long term unemployeds who doesn’t show on the stats. I have been mostly out of work since 4/04. I have been wiling to move most anywhere in the country.
I admit there are a couple of holes in my skill set but now, I can’t even get a nibble. And of course, since I have been out since ‘04, it has become “Well, just what HAVE you been doing all this time.” Which question is proving difficult to tamp down the sarcasm when I receive it.
Hi Judy.
NPR’s chart doesn’t make me feel any better, but this does:
Newsweek magazine is planning staff cuts…
Hi Judy, What is your view of the future and what needs to be done.
Digg is open
Welcome Judy!
dakine01 raises a really important issue — as bad as the unemployment statistics are, they don’t paint the whole picture. They don’t capture people who are extremely long-term unemployed; they don’t count “discouraged” workers (those who have essentially given up because it’s so bad), nor do they count the under-employed — in today’s economy, conservative estimates are that 7.3 million workers are working part time jobs when really, they want to be working full time. The employment crisis is really more severe than even the bad numbers released by DOL reveal
Hi Judy, thanks for stopping by!
I am wondering if President elect Obama’s plans to boost spending on the infrastructure is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what really needs to happen in this country.
So, what should be done. Well, first, Congress needs to enact a bill called the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act. Basically, this bill would provide states with financial incentives to modernize their unemployment systems so that more workers, most of them low-wage and women workers, would qualify for unemployment. The reforms this bill incentivizes are ones that recognize the realities of the modern workforce.
Beyond that, our elected officials need to make job creation and retention one of their top priorities. This economy has collapsed on the backs of workers, but it can only recover on the backs of workers as well. We need to stop off-shoring jobs and giving companies tax breaks who do so. We need to retrain workers for the jobs of the new workforce, with a focus on green jobs. We need to make sure that government money that goes into jobs, such as contracting, is spent on good jobs with good wages and benefits
I think Pres. Elect Obama’s plans to invest in infrastructure are far more than a drop in the bucket . . . EPI and other smart think-tanks have lists of infrastructure projects that are ready to go — all they need is the money. These jobs will put people back to work right away, and allow construction workers, for example, who are underemployed in other fields of work, to go back to their chosen professions, opening up new jobs to more people. It’s a cycle we need to start and sustain.
A tragedy of minor proportions.
Newsweek is for the most part an advertorial infomercial for Big Pharma.
Do you think that the government omits these statistics deliberately to skew the figures?
The unemployment numbers have baffled me for years because what the statistics show just does not match my personal experience. IMO there has been a crisis in employment since at least September 11.
I look for a huge jump in January as many retailers close stores. BoA announced 35,000 lay off can we create enough jobs to hold even.
I don’t think it’s quite so deliberate — I think it’s a matter of these statistics being incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to capture with any degree of accuracy. How can you possibly account for every person who has given up? How can you accurately track down everyone who is under-employed? These are difficult figures to quantify.
That being said, we probably could do better and should strive to come up with better ways to measure more accurate indicia of things like the employment situation, poverty, etc.
In the short term, I don’t think there’s any way we can create enough jobs to stay even. That’s the sad reality. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try to do our best and to hasten the economic recovery.
Employment is what we like to call a “lagging indicator” in a recession — that is, it doesn’t fully rebound until well after the recession is over. Businesses are going to want to restore their credit, pay their debts, and be sure to be on good financial footing before they start staffing up again, so the last thing they do after the economy recovers will be to restore their staff to full level.
That being said, there is tremendous opportunity to create new jobs, and to train people for new industries, right now and we would be foolish to let that opportunity pass us by, thereby extending the length of time it will take for financial recovery
Thanks for coming by, Judy, and for the work NELP does. I realize this might be a bit away from the focus of your group, but do you know of any national efforts underway to bring more attention to how bare the cupboards are at food banks when more people than ever need them?
They aren’t counting everyone by a long shot. Most people blame themselves for being unemployed and so does this culture. If we knew how many were really out of work maybe we wouldn’t feel so bad and maybe we would take an even stronger stand against the unfettered capitalistic nature of the a–holes in charge.
You raise such an important issue Jim. Our governmental social safety net is very frayed right now, and is placing incredible demand on the private safety nets, such as food banks. I know many who are struggling, and it’s not new this year — last year was bad too.
There are efforts among advocates for human needs, such as the Coalition for Human Needs, ECAP, and their allies, to make sure that there is serious enhancement of food stamps in the next stimulus bill. This will take some pressure off food banks, as people will have other alternatives. I’m not aware of any effort to divert federal funds to food banks, but the hope is that the other things that Congress and the Administration can do to stimulate the economy, will help decrease the demand on such private safety net functions.
Greenspan’s boobies.
Heckuva job, Al.
Mary — one of the things that’s so unique about this recession is that people who have NEVER been hit by unemployment, and never thought they would, are losing their jobs and not finding new ones. I hear from workers every day who are ashamed that they have to collect unemployment benefits even though they’ve been paying into the system all along. It’s no different than any other type of insurance program.
The more people share their stories, and make it clear that unemployment is not a moral deficiency, the better everyone will be.
And don’t forget about the self employed. They don’t get unemployment.
I know. That’s why it makes me feel better. The staff cuts are pretty minor, but I’m looking for a silver lining here.
Unemployment may be difficult to quantify accurately, but just about anyone could read the (previous) unemployment rates of 4.7, etc., and see that those numbers were not right. Really, it was–and still is–lol funny it’s so inaccurate.
That’s right . . . and in a majority of states, people who want to work part-time don’t get it either. THat cuts out an awful lot of working parent (mostly moms) who are trying to balance work/family obligations. ALso, there are legions of workers who are misclassified as independent contractors, when really, they are employees — those folks likely won’t get unemployment either because our unemployment offices are so over-taxed right now, they can’t find the time to resolve issues like these.
And yet we have to watch idiot like Larry Kudlow spouting his nonsense on TV about how Unemployment Compensation is just a scam to allow folks to take paid vacations.
I actually heard him make that statement. He obviously had/has no clue whatsoever about how much each state pays weekly in unemployment to the individuals and the obstacles in place to keep folks from collecting.
Perhaps that NPR chart was crafted by the same NPR folks behind this:
The big unemployment story I’ve been watching from my perch in KC has been across the state in St. Louis. InBev, having successfully taken over Anheuser-Busch, has announced that they are now cutting jobs to streamline operations and cover the cost of the takeover:
That’s roughly one in six of A-B’s St. Louis workers who will be joining the ranks of the unemployed next year. If you assume a comparable decline in payroll, that’s a drop of somewhere around $5 million in state and local taxes.
That’s going to leave a mark in Jeff City and St. Louis both, and the folks that will feel it first are those looking for health care (SCHIP, Medicaid/Medicare), schools, and other recipients of social services — the very people who will need those services the most during an economic downturn.
I hear from dozens of unemployed workers a week DESPERATE for any job — they’d take a paycut; they’d forego benefits; they just want to work. They feel LOUSY not being able to work andsupport their families. And considering that the average unemployment benefit in the country is about $237 per week, trust me, no one is living high-on-the-hog, enjoying a vacation as some very callous politicians, commentators, and so-called policy experts would have you believe.
That’s why we need to invest in job creation and retention – because if we don’t spend the money there, we’ll eventually spend much more in public benefits, subsidized health care, etc.
Do you see universal healthcare as a potential mechnism for the development of permanent jobs? How much emphasis do you think Obama should put on healthcare as part of a national jobs recovery program?
What’s with all the whining? The fundamentals are strong and lots of opportunities to buy!
-G
fuckery all around.
Well, I used to run a small non-profit organization, and know about the health care costs that my current employer has. It’s no exaggeration to say that if costs weren’t so high, if they were more on par with health care costs of 20-30 years ago, we could hire a lot more people. Health care costs are eating away at employers’ ability to hire more people. So if the next Congress and Administration can truly do something about the health care crisis in this country, get people covered, and keep costs reasonable, it will be a huge part of our economic recovery.
You can’t buy if you don’t have any money to spend.
You’re preaching to the choir with me on that one, so to speak. I’m a pastor in the KC area, and I know more than a few of the people who run local food pantries. Corporate donations are way, way down; church and community donations are down; and yesterday’s donors have become today’s clients. Business at the food banks is too good.
You could say that these are the “Old Mother Hubbard” days — lots of folks headed for the cupboard to get the poor dog a bone, but when they get there, the cupboard is bare . . .
Only a big push around Thanksgiving and Christmas has kept them from closing their doors for lack of food. They are OK right now, but they are really worried about February, when the “spirit of Christmas” giving dries up.
Yeah, I bet there are going to be LOTS of good liquidation auctions coming up this spring. Isn’t it Warren Buffett who said that he buys when everyone else is selling?
I hear you . . . my family and I have drastically scaled back on our Christmas giving to each other and instead, are giving the money we would have spent on presents to local charities that help people with emergency assistance and the basics of life. Your reminder that we need to keep giving even after the holidays is well taken. God bless the work you’re doing.
I spent 30 mins yesterday speaking with an unemployed worker who had to make the choice, last week, between buying deodorant and toilet paper — she simply couldn’t afford both. That’s the buying reality. As the NELP commissioned survey shows, people are literally skipping meals, not just scaling back to Hamburger Helper, but truly, not eating, because they can’t afford food.
What about jobs in the medical profession? Seems to me that universal healthcare would increase demand so much that a lot of jobs would be created to meet the needs of the newly covered.
I hope you’re right.
I’m being a tad facetious.
Sorry.
-G
Yep. The final act in the great redistribution.
The ownership society, we all got owned.
-G
I figured as much, but just in case you were serious, and for the benefit of others out there, I thought it merited a response. :)
Average people who lose their jobs, even though they do everything they’re asked and do it well, go broke and lose their homes.
But executives who run their companies into the ground because they’re incompetent can still get jobs that pay more than they need to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
Sorry if my last post sounded insensitive. It was snark. If I had money to spend at auctions, I would pay my rent. We’ve already gone 3/7 vegetarian.
I recently noticed chicken gizzards and liver are back at the meat section of my local grocery store… but they were expensive.
with golden parachutes no less. Doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?
Frankly I would like to see a lot of jobs being lost in the medical insurance industry as we move to single payer
Not so fast – -some of those jobs, like certified nursing assistants and the like are great entry level jobs, and if in unionized hospitals and facilities, have good wages, benefits, and promotion potential. Remember, it’s not all about the doctors and executives :)
I think we’re running out of time, so let me just say while I can, that it’s been a pleasure being a guest-blogger and I’m glad to see so many people interested in this issue.
FOr more information about the rights of unemployed workers, and the campaigns being mounted to help them, see http://www.unemployedworkers.org. Also feel free to check out NELP’s website — http://www.nelp.org
Think of all the new plebotomists that will be needed to draw blood from patients who haven’t been able to see a doctor in 10 years. Then someone has to analyze the blood sample. Someone else has to maintain the result files. Somebody’s got to tell the patient the results. It goes on and on. . .
Thanks for coming to the lake!
New Ian upstairs “Senate Republicans Determined to Cause a Depression by Destroying the Big 3″
My pleasure –I will surely visit again!
Thanks Judy
I have been looking for suitible employment since 09/2007. I have applied for so many jobs that I have lost tract, and interest. I have completed so many application, submitted so many resumes and cover letters that I can now do so backwards, blind-folded and by memory. Graduate from high school they say. Join the military, serve your country they say. Go to college, work hard and study even harder they say. Now what? I’ve done my part. Where are all the jobs? It’s a sad day when a hard-working husband and father with a solid work-history and no criminal record can’t find a job. And as the months tick by with no job I am rapidly loosing faith in the American Dream.
Yes, I am one of those long-term unemployed. True, I can find work. I am not a “job snob.” But the pay, hours and benefits I have been offered are so low as to not meet any of my family’s needs. So I remain unemployed, not by choice, but by cirmcstance. I want to work. But I will not work to go broke.
Where on that chart was when they changed the definition of unemployed?