Posted on 09/16/2011 1:33:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
After 30 months of unemployment, 400 applications, and only three in-person interviews, I stood looking at my last unemployment benefit without a job in sight.
The temptation was to frame it, since it marks one of those transitions in life that merits being remembered. But I needed the money more than a memento, so I took my last unemployment check to the bank and deposited it -- $367 for some necessities. Food, rent, gas. My last unemployment check was $160 less than my usual weekly benefit, but still a welcome boost to my sagging finances. How I will miss those Tuesday trips to the mailbox and then the bank, one of the few regular events in my upended, irregular life!
I had always thought the unemployed were society's unfortunates, people unlike me lacking in education or training or experience or skills. Then in March of 2009, the Hearst Corporation quit publishing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I suddenly became a labor statistic, one of millions without work in the worst economic implosion since the Depression. I was more fortunate than many unemployed people since the Newspaper Guild negotiated a decent severance that yielded two weeks' pay for every year of employment. Since I had spent more than a quarter century underneath the P-I's landmark globe, my severance was a year's salary, although that lump sum check as I left the building forever had a tax bite from a Great White Shark.
Now my severance is exhausted, as is my unemployment, and I am scrambling every day for work. I had been a columnist, then the book critic for the P-I, enviable newspaper jobs even among my colleagues. Now I seek any writing or editing work that I discover,
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
My Dad was a barber (just one of his jobs). After going to barber school, you have to apprentice with an experienced barber for 18 months(if my memory is right). It seemed like forever to us.
None glamorous or fun but they paid better than sitting at home filling out resume’s.
In all that time this writer didn’t write a book? Create a proofreading or transcription business?Get a welder’s license? Open a hot dog stand? Why not?
It’s ok to be heartless when discussing moonbat journalist scum
Being heartless is the way to save our country.
I have noticed that stores are even starting to send "real" mail advertisements with coupons and lots of items on sale. They are hurting for business. The irony is that the post office is nearly bankrupt (Severe Pension-itis) so the ads are arriving after the sales are over. Fruitless efforts and a waste of money for the stores.
I received two clothing catalogs in the mail this week. Out of hundreds of items, I could find only one that was MADE IN THE U.S.A., and that was a pair of socks for six bucks, available in three colors. Every single other item had the word Imported at the end of its description.
Last time I was unemployed, I sent in just the required amount, because I wanted to have a few weeks to clean out the closets, and organize the house.
I got called for almost all of the interviews, and had a job withing 2 weeks. I also had no trouble changing jobs during the Carter years either.
That said, I won’t pile on. It is a lousy time to look for a job. I would try a lot of things, if I needed a job, and that would include sending out at least 70 resumes a week.
The amount that amount the employer paid is a pittance, we the people picked up the tab:
3. State unemployment tax
State governments administer unemployment services and determine the state unemployment tax rate for each employer. (Some not-for-profit organizations—such as churches without schools—may not be required to pay state unemployment taxes. You should check with your state unemployment office to learn the specifics for your organization.)
Generally, states require that the employers pay the entire unemployment tax. Often, employers that have built up a large reserve in the state’s unemployment fund will have lower unemployment tax rates; conversely, employers with a small reserve (or no reserve at all) will have higher unemployment tax rates.
The unemployment tax rate is often applied only to the first $7,000 of each employee’s annual salary and wages (this amount will differ from state to state). If we assume that an employer’s unemployment tax rate is 4% and that this is applied to the first $7,000 of annual salaries and wages, then the employer’s state unemployment tax cost will be a maximum of $280 per year for each employee ($7,000 × 4%).
To illustrate, let’s assume that a company has three employees. In 2011, Employee #1 earned $19,000, Employee #2 earned $40,000, and Employee #3 (who only recently joined the company) earned $4,000. If the 2011 state unemployment tax rate is 4%, the employer will pay a tax of $720 to the state government:
Employee #1 $7,000 × 4% = $280
Employee #2 $7,000 × 4% = $280
Employee #3 $4,000 × 4% = $160
Total for 2011 $720
Even though the state unemployment tax is based on employee salaries and wages, the entire tax is paid by the employer. There is no withholding from an employee’s salary or wages for the state unemployment tax.
withing = within
In the case in question, the resume was a liability.
His world is over. What he was is simply no longer worth any thing
Yesterday, I passed a Peets coffee shop advertising a “job fair” this Saturday for a n assistant mgr, and a manager, which told me they expected dozens of applicants. Across town a Jewish deli was advertising for a samwich maker. A headhunter left me an urgent message and sent a frantic e-mail about a job he had for which I was clearly not qualified (and too old to boot.) That’s the fracking reality out there. Service jobs serving the lucky to be employed.
Article’s author is manufacturing drama...these days, things like UI payments are made by direct deposit to an existing account or deposited onto a prepaid debit card... checks are outmoded.
I’m not unsympathetic for the unemployed. The best way to help them is to kick a whole bunch of losers (R and D) out of office in 2012. We need conservatives who are willing to shake up the status quo. It’s not like we don’t know what needs to be done. We discuss it here all the time. It’s the classic fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. We’ve been living like grasshoppers for far too long and winter is nearly here.
http://www.dltk-teach.com/fables/grasshopper/mstory.htm
BTW, the article’s author was apparently well paid for many, many years and received an entire year’s salary in severance pay. What did he do to prepare for these lean years beyond expecting government handouts? Sympathy belongs mostly to those who are responsible but are down on their luck through no real fault of their own. This guy had his good times and apparently squandered them.
“In the case in question, the resume was a liability.
His world is over. What he was is simply no longer worth any thing”
I am not so sure it was worth all that much to begin with, but in my case, the irony was that I deliberately selected interesting sounding jobs that my resume obviously did not fit, thinking there was no chance that I would even get a call.
I figured it was a sign from my departed grandmother who worked till age 79, that I needed to get myself back to work. LOL.
How many here remember how we urged the Bush administration and Congress to act in the face of U.S. corporations exporting jobs to India and China. Nothing was ever done, except the H1B visa limits were repeatedly raised.
I know many software professionals who lost their jobs to Bangalore Indians.
Bush’s fault? You betcha!
Nah.....Bush didn’t mind letting the illegals have jobs and then cried about jobs leaving the country. Either way foreigners are getting our jobs. Hypocritical.
The guy's a leech (actually an insult to leeches as they have a medical purpose)/ And you are a fool to think otherwise, let alone make a post about it. Sometimes I am embarrassed by ridiculous posts on FR and yours was one of them.
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