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The Anguish of Unemployment
A new survey of unemployed Americans quantifies the enormous psychological trauma inflicted on laid-off workers by the recession -- but the pain comes through most clearly in the comments of the unemployed themselves.
A job seeker looks over the employment bulletin board the New York State Labor Department's Division of Employment Services resource in New York City. The US unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August as 216,000 jobs were lost, the government said in a report showing improving labor market conditions.
(AFP/Getty Images/File/Chris Hondros) "The lack of income and loss of health benefits hurts greatly, but
losing the ability to provide for my wife and myself is killing me
emotionally," wrote one respondent to the survey, which was conducted
by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers
University.
"Everything I have built up over the past 15 years of my life is being chipped away," wrote another.
"It really gives you a feel for the depth of the emotion and the suffering people are going through," said survey co-author Cliff Zukin, explaining why he included the raw comments in the report.
The numbers are pretty grim, too: Only 20 percent of those surveyed think they will land a job in the next few months, even fewer expect to get their old job back (11 percent), and most people say they feel stressed (77 percent), depressed (68 percent), helpless (61 percent), and angry (55 percent).
The survey finds that 55 percent of the unemployed say it's their first bout of joblessness in five years, 60 percent were given no notice whatsoever by their employer, and only 11 percent think they'll get their old job back.
Zukin said that beyond the collective psychological trauma, the numbers bode badly for the economic impact of the nation's employment situation. Sixty-three percent of respondents have dipped into their savings or retirement funds, 56 percent have had to borrow from friends or family, and 34 percent have increased their credit card debt.
More numbers:
-- 75 percent of respondents are considering changing their career.
-- 43 percent said they'd received unemployment benefits from the government in the last year.
-- 53 percent said they had no health care benefits.
Some more comments:
"Even though age discrimination is illegal, I do believe it puts people off hiring; that is why I took a temporary job on my last job....I've always worked, so this is very depressing. At age 60, I never believed I would be unemployed unless I chose to be."
"My age (59) leaves me feeling worthless, very old, and isolated from the workforce -- with little chance of finding employment."
"Very few employers are willing to hire someone at my age because they are afraid of possible health concerns down the road, and that I may decide to retire too soon to make me a good risk."
"I don't want to move back home with my parents. Right before I became unemployed, I had moved out on my own for the first time."
"Nobody has called me in seven months. I don't feel important. I'm not contributing to family finances."
Click here to read a PDF of "The Anguish of Unemployment."
- Posted in
24 Comments so far
Show AllUh, this article seems to be a doubled C&P job.
Yes, I noticed the bad copy job on this posting...but I identify with the story....I am 41 living in Portland, OR and feel old, unemployable given the youthful competiton and I am so depressed I don't want to get out of my little trailer bed...my home now is a 13 ft. trailer!
LIFE SUCKS thanks to the citizens in the USA who allow themselves to be led around by the nostril and be dictated to by the rich politicians BAILOUTS FOR GM, AIG, BANK OF AMERICA....BAILOUTS FOR THE STOCKHOLDERS AND CEOS OF WALL ST. FIRMS....CONTRACTS TO HALIBURTON, BLACKWATER & PRIVATE CONTRACTORS WHO PILLAGE, PLUNDER AND KILL IN FOREIGN LANDS.
And who among us is contributing to this line of terror so we can collect a paycheck? Not me. Thankfully! I will probably die with my principles & integrity in check!
Freethinker68, I am so sorry for all that you're going through right now, and as someone who is MUCH older than you, just want to share what I have learned: nothing stays the same, and you never know what's going to happen next. If you keep putting one foot in front of the other, your journey will lead you to places you never imagined. You think 41 is old; it's not. It just seems old to you because you're young.
The way that I have found to get through the really hard times in my life has been to live in tiny increments. Sometimes one hour increments. When I despaired, I would say, well, I'll give it another hour. And then I'd give it another hour, and so on. And then, because I hung on, things would change. Change is inevitable; that's all life is.
But getting through the hour is not easy. What helped me most was getting outside and walking. When I felt panicked, I walked fast, which helped calm me down. When I could, I worked at calming my mind by trying to be a detached observer of my thoughts, noticing them and then letting them go without getting sucked in by them. I thought of my thoughts as bubbles that surfaced in my consciousness for an instant, and then I tried to let them drift away. You can do this while you're walking, or at least outside. Get yourself out of your trailer!
Along with so many others who will read your post today, but who may not respond by posting, I am sending you all my best thoughts and wishes for good things to start happening for you soon.
freethinker68, don't be depressed, you have so much more than others who never saw it coming.
For one you don't have a mansion with mammoth payments due once a month. You could be locked into paying a couple thousand a month mortgage just to break even.
Your time is YOURS!
Even though WE are broke!
I was laid off in the early 80's when the unemployment rate was 10 percent. Finding a job when the rate is this high is more of a lottery. Not finding one has nothing to do with the person's experience, education, age, or motivation. I feel nothing but sadness when I see news reports on issues like "How to write a cover letter." Ha. This just gives the unemployed person hope. As if a hiring manager is going to read every letter that comes with the thousands of applications for the few jobs available!
The biggest problem an unemployed person has in an environment like this is to not take it personally.
I've read the actual current rate may be 16 percent or more.
We are pretty far from hitting bottom.
All the people who are hanging in there by spending their retirement savings, may very well run out. This will put another block of homes into foreclosure.
The "stimulus" is only a temporary measure. It will only slow down and delay the slide to the bottom. We absolutely need work done on our infrastructure. But you can only re-build a bridge once. And then, all the employees are out of work again.
The millions of jobs lost may never be replaced. At the very least, it will be years.
Thanks to those who replied w/ encouragement and solutions to the manic id that is roaming my head. Change is the only constant and it is a blessing I know....but being conscious that I can do whatever I want (requiring it is free) is something I need to refer to and living the hour by hour philosophy is really impt. I am just getting out of bed and it is 11:20 here. Ugh.
The comment on "writing a cover letter or revamping your resume" is degrading I agree. Remember when Bill Clinton in the mid 90's was saying "we need to re-educate our workers to compete with foreign workers (yeah, like Phillipino women in their 30's were better educated to get the masses of factory jobs moving overseas to escape our living wage jobs and pesky environmental laws) Clinton was humiliating us into thinking we were uneducated and unskilled!! fucker!!! his wife is just like him! dirt-bags that lot is!!!
You are correct, Clinton did a lot to set the ball rolling downhill. Free trade was something he was always gung-ho about. I think the Seattle free-trade riots were a wake up call for some of us, but obviously not all. Our industrial base has been sold out to the lowest wage, and the race to the bottom is almost complete with the result being that most of us are too poor to buy their crap now anyway. Impoverishing consumers has and will continue to bankrupt them; they made sure their profits would be unsustainable. The re-training scam is great for the schools, though--until that money dries up as well.
From http://dons-review-law-politics-science-philosophy.com
Pressure is mounting on President Barack Obama, just as it is on people like me who have been laid off for seven months and face employers who say there will be no jobs for the foreseeable future, or—if lucky--minimum wage jobs, just to feed my son and wife and keep a roof over their heads—and mine. Good News! After trying everything but selling my body to science, I MAY have a 40-hour-a-week job as a security guard at $9 per hour. That’s $1 per hour less than unemployment pays me. But, you see, unemployment will run out.
Oh! Did I mention that I’m seriously considering dropping the wonderful COBRA health insurance that my slippery union affords me since my January layoff at $374 a month. That’s just for me. Not my son or wife. I also have “prediabetes” and a heart condition in which the bottom chambers receive no nerve signal f rom the main “branch bundle” of nerves.
There are others. A group has been started on LinkedIn. It’s at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2248131
My ad reads: “Laid off 7 mos. COBRA is $374 a month. Just for me, not 8-y-o son or wife. Protest? Join me? Not pay for Sep or Oct? Get media story?” The group is “Health Insurance for the Unemployed/COBRA Protest.”
And there are others. A group is now touring this nation of corporate divisions—not states. The U.S. is one big corporation, with divisions. The group is called “Mad as Hell Doctors.” They’re on FaceBook. I’ve invited them to join the new LinkedIn site. Their website: http://www.madashelldoctors.com/
Their home page says:
This is not a campaign. In campaigns, there are spectators. This is a movement.
Everybody plays.
The Plan: Mad Doctors Hit the Road
On September 8, 2009 a group of dedicated Oregon physicians will take the message of Universal Health Care "on the road" in a wrapped and branded Motor Home headed for Washington D.C. Our cross-country mission: to stop in big cities and whistle stops alike, conducting pre-booked, local and national media appearances for a curious press. Every move we make along the way will be recorded on camera and then edited and uploaded to the internet that same day. This will allow our Mad As Hell Doctors Tour to leverage the edited video segments on social networking web sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, et al. In this way, our effort becomes an unprecedented hybrid of reality television and political activism that offers people the opportunity to follow us, in real time, as our story unfolds. The message will be unmistakable: caravan with us to Washington and help make a public demonstration of support for Single Payer Health Care that will be heard around the world.
Imagine...
Thousands of cars pulling into the nation's capital for a protest on the White House lawn. The sidewalks are filled with supporters carrying signs in support of the Mad As Hell Doctors who have captured the imagination and the ignited the passion of their fellow citizens. We wave and honk at the camera crews, as do the endless line of cars behind us, as we wend our way toward the White House. On every antenna, on the backside of every car, and flapping like flags from sidewalk supporters, is the symbol of this new movement: the White Ribbon.
When we arrive, we go directly to the White House Lawn and begin passing out ribbons to the multitude of people waiting for the protest to begin. Politicians, celebrities, entertainers and hand selected citizens stand at the microphone one after the other, offering testimonials and expressing outrage at a corrupted health care system that puts profit before people. Our message to the President and Congress is clear:
Single Payer is the Solution. We Demand it Now.
Ahhh! But the corporations, the bailed-out corporations have it rough too—but their employees still have health insurance—the best in the country—and huge homes in the Westchester suburbs and food to feed their five kids.
Citigroup, also, has gone through its own kind of “hell” since the meltdown of 2008 and still is. One of its tax managers involved with the melee of saving the bank and making sense of the input of common folk’s tax dollars from the U.S. government, since the subprime mortgage housing bubble burst last summer, says: “Everyone has had it hard here. I work 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and weekends!”
Now facing the “Audacity of Dopes,” the dopes who got laid off and have no health insurance—because that’s what they are in our great Corporation of United Divisions aren’t they? Dopes? If they got laid off, they must have deserved it. Didn’t plan for it. Were too stupid to get $50,000 starting accountants’ pay WITH a $35,000 bonus at Citi. Let them eat cake! Someone said. More likely a cake of sod at the tent cities to come in D.C.
FINALLY, with the Greats of Wrath prepping to visit his house in D.C., Mr. Obama, writes the Associated Press (Fawning Corporate Media, FCM), will deliver a major prime-time health care address to Congress next week, opening a push to gain control of the debate that has been slipping from his grasp under withering Republican-led attacks. The Republicans. From the lager-minders of Auschwitz and the gulags of the Soviet Union. The ones who lost the White House and Congress by making torture acceptable—unless it was their son or daughter. The ones with the laugable Sarah Palin as a current leader. You stink, Obama. The speech better be wonderful. But even movie action heroes know they have to throw a punch after their monologue.
9.7%, huh?
That's almost ten, not to mention the "Unofficial unemployed" like myself who have been unemployed so long we don't count on the rolls. Lovely scam there.
When are these people supposed to revolt?
Unfortunately, sometimes people revolt against their families and themselves. Depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and family violence are the camp-followers of unemployment. The cure is jobs, and meanwhile, friends.
I would love to see all the people at the unemployment office gather and march onto the golf courses. But these days everything is by phone, so there is not even a place to organize the unemployed.
Joe
HAVE SOME MORE CAPITALISM...have some MORE!!
This article speaks the truth and the numbers are a lot higher for those of us over 50. I've been out of work since March of '08. I put out applications regularly but it looks pretty grim. No insurance, no hope and no future beyond odd jobs and mean streets. Capitalism is a criminal enterprise we can no longer afford.
the Jaded Prole
Wait until their unemployment insurance expires! Congress is trying to get a bill through to extend it longer, but won't pass in time for 400k people whose benefits are slated to end this month. And Jaded Prole makes a good point about the 50 and over crowd--it's even worse for them. Also, gotta love that 'independent contractor' work where you pay for everything--including the liability insurance 'employers' insist you buy before you can work for them!
I've been unemployed since last November. My husband has been unemployed since the end of March of this year. I am 52 and my husband is 53. My husband's last employer was his employer for the last 27 years. I worked for my old employer for almost 11 years. Looking for work again after all this time is so humiliating. No one is hiring and there are less and less job postings out there every day. I cry every day. This hurts so much to feel so useless so not desirable. We just look at each other and wonder how long it will be before we loose everything we have ever worked for: The house, the new car I bought right before I got laid off because I had had a car accident and my paid off truck was totaled and our little bit of savings. Not to mention the fact that we lost our medical insurance so we have to hope that we stay well. When I was growing up my parents said that if I worked hard, was never late to work, did not take many sick days that I would be able to be an asset to my employer. Well those days are over now. The thing is what do I tell my 20 something kids? One of whom still lives with us and his friends (one of them is a National Guardsman) and little baby who also live with us because they have no where else to go. I feel so lost and sad for this country. Is there no help for all of us now?
Anything I could say seems weak. We need jobs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgy1VGA2BE8
Joe
If HR676 were the law the unemployed would have exponentially fewer worries.
I was so desperate and demoralized being unemployed for months, that I took on construction/yardwork/landscaping jobs this summer to keep my head above water... even tho a bit old for this (mid 50s) and not trained in this area, I took on work I probably shouldn't have and wound up having a bad accident (involving a ladder while pruning trees....yeah, it hurt.) and the uninsured nightmare ever since that day in july continues...only reason i'm not 100% homeless is due to kind family/friends. There are so many glaring needs in this country you'd think jobs would be easy to find. I am eager to work, but not at something moronic that just props up some business that is wasteful, ecologically harmful and doesn't contribute something real and useful to my community. (And even those jobs are beyond competing for at my age). Nearly every week for months I learn of one more friend who's been laid off, lost nearly everything due to health issues and being uninsured, or worse, both. When is this going to turn around?.... I'd join those Mad-as-hell-doctors (I'm a great cook...you need a cook on crutches?) if I could.... Am hoping we all become such squeaky wheels the status-quo masters-of-the-universe bailed-out ceos might actually wake up and find their consciences! How about swords into ploughshares? Instead of coming up with astronomically pricey unmanned drones, more diabolical ways to kill and such, how about something that actually benefited human beings!? I'd love to learn about water conservation, solar panels, physical therapy, acupuncture, teaching kids about farming.... but no $$ for training. I hope and pray by the time I can walk again I can find decent work somewhere, regain my independence and dignity and make a positive difference in our crazy crazy money-mad culture.
Many of us who are 50+ can no longer handle difficult manual labor, at least not day in and day out. That's why, for these types of professions, a 65 yo retirement age is much too high. I can understand your desperation, but without medical coverage (and even with), taking such a job when you're 'older' is losing proposition. That said, there are many, many now in the same boat as you. It's ironic considering that the over 50 crowd is bigger than it's ever been. Ageism is indeed alive and well.
Am hoping we all become such squeaky wheels the status-quo masters-of-the-universe bailed-out ceos might actually wake up and find their consciences!
They have none, so don't hold your breath. That's part of what makes psychopaths and sociopaths so dangerous.
As a 57 year old toolmaker, machinist, cnc programmer I have been hit by every recession this country has had since the 70's.
This to shall pass, you just have to get tough and hang in.
This is going to be a long haul lasting at least another five years or better.
My trade is the first laid off when no one buys but also the first called back when things pick up and I just don't see it.
The best thing to do is smile and carry on, and be glad it hasn't been a bad summer.
I live on a few dollars a day, I worked hard all my life to get to that point.
I knew that this was coming back in the late 60s with the Viet-Nam War and the gas embargo of 74'. I have been very vocal about it since!
I'm 55, and I don't expect SS, or have a retirement. (Even though I was a public servant for the Federal Government)
I was a consumer at one time, but now I consume as little as possible. You might say I am off the radar!
I love to watch the sun come up each day. PRICELESS!
If I get terminally sick... I guess I'm gonna die. I realize this and so does my unconsciousness. I've got my health, and can do hard labor, in fact I love to work hard!
I'm going to work hard and stay healthy till I'm dead. Wouldn't have it any other way!
Screw our present Government!
EVERYBODY STOP!!! Stop working, stop struggling, just stay in bed and rest...
our time has come, no more work. nothing more needs to be done.
this is our masterpiece.
So what do you do when your child comes to your bedside and asks for "brekups" in the morning? This is not a viable option for people with love relationships and responsibilities.
I suppose only a few special ones are expected to create masterpieces, though.
Joe
I work cheap for my friends with families. I don't need much money, and many times do work for dinner.
We have to help each other in times like this! It's up to us to be the society we want.
I didn't go the family route, my family is all life on the planet. I fight for what's right and a just world.