I can relate to that woman. However the difference is she has a family I don’t. I was cut off on December 28 but they still owe me 900.00. Now since I got laid off since October 2012 I have submitted resumes daily and I even applied at fast food places, including Sams, Walmart, etc. and nothing. There are few here that says “get off the couch and get a job”. That is easy for you to say. I remember having that attitude but not no more. Now I’m on the other side. I am not denying there are some who abuse the system but there is no need to punish the rest of us who are trying to get a job. As of now my brother is helping me with rent but he is struggling too. As for the bills now I am pawning my mother’s jewelry which is not much.
“Trista, who used to make $30,000 a year working for a medical billing service, was laid off from her job in November of 2012, and hasn’t been able to find a job since.”
I feel for this woman, and everyone else like her. I still have memories of the recession of the early 1980s, when my dad was out of work for almost a year.
The difference this time is that there’s no Reagan Recovery waiting around the corner. My dad got back to work and was soon making a much better salary than he had before he’d lost his last job. Today, I’m not so sure he’d have found a job at all, much less a better one. We are staring at what I fear may well be a “lost decade”, with the idiotic policies of this administration making things worse.
The “new normal” really, really sucks, folks.
Tell the people suffering to ask their state legislatures to decide between public pensions, public schools, public welfare, public safety and extended unemployment benefits.
“It’s very sad that– to have the qualifications and not be able to actually work, you know, get a job in your field. And I’ve been doing this 2007.”
I feel ya Trista.
I actually had a conversation with an employment agency guy in which he told me that I was basically OVER qualified AND UNDER qualified for any job he might ever encounter.
That just blew my mind.
The Uniparty government cuts military pensions, raises taxes and cuts the extended unemployment all at the same time.
The new farm bill has food stamp cuts in it.
Now they raise the credit card limit of the nation by raising the debt ceiling.
Policies that anger conservatives for sure and should anger the left that wants those bennies and handouts.
THE REAL SOLUTION OF BALANCING THE BUDGET AND REFUSING TO INCREASE THE NATIONAL DEBT ISN’T EVEN ON THE RADAR WITH THE DEMS AND THEIR GOP-E ALLIES IN THE UNIPARTY GOVERNMENT.
James FalknerJuly 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm(28)
Last week in a legislative briefing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) stoked the unemployment insurance (UI) debate by stating that unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs.
Part of the Obama Legacy.
I don’t want anyone here to get the wrong impression in what I’m about to say because this woman in the interview does seem to have a good attitude about looking for work, etc. But that is why she was chosen for this story in the first place.
This (the PBS video interview) is a very slick production piece that isn’t really about her. It’s about reasons for extending unemployment insurance compensation and uses her as the ‘showcase’.
Firstly, I watched the entire production (I call it a production because there was a carefully crafted political story here). WE MUST HAVE EXTENDED UNEMPLOYMENT!
I’ll go over her story a little and tell you what I saw. A woman who lives with a husband who has “her part of the bills to pay”. Husband on “light duty” because of an injury making $20,000 a year now as a truck driver, etc. Nice home in okay subdivision, nice furnishings. Her monthly bills for “her part” covers things like $132/mo home phone, $153.60/mo Cell phone, $74/mo cable and car insurance and vet bills plus and entry for $640/month child support(?).
Nice clothes (some kind of designer stuff by Denmark Impressions(?)- wore two different things), goes outside to get into a new Nissan and passes a truck and two SUVs in the driveway. All I can say is that Dave says you can cut some of this stuff out and make it easier to get by.
The rest of the story: Good Guys - Urban League for African Americans and their spiel, driving 45 minutes to get downtown is a financial burden. Bad Guy: Professor Dorfman who says long unemployment compensation is bad. He cites NC dropping UIC from 59 weeks to 17 (or like that) and the unemployment rate in NC went down from the 8s to the 6s. People took jobs they could get, not what they were holding out for.
The producer’s and the Urban League’s comeback? UNEMPLOYMENT IN NC ONLY WENT DOWN BECAUSE SO MANY GAVE UP LOOKING FOR WORK. Read that again! The unemployment rate, according to them now ONLY WENT DOWN BECAUSE SO MANY GAVE UP LOOKING FOR WORK! [Never mind that this happened ONLY when NC cut the length of time for UIC] Imagine that!
Do we hear Obama and his ilk with this excuse for the national employment numbers? Hell no! Obama CREATED jobs! It is ironic to me the reason they give for NC isn’t correct for the cited NC rate, but IS correct for the national rate. Damned funny if you ask me.
These people actually do want their cake and to be able to eat it too! - regardless of the lady (who I’m believe is eligible for SNAP, EITC - her husband anyway, and other stuff they don’t dare mention here in this production).
PBS and the Urban League spent a lot of time and effort on this production - carefully crafted, excellent production quality, and a careful choice of a ‘candidate’ who didn’t fit their view of a conservative’s idea of a welfare cheat. The goal here is push production - move attitudes towards UIC extension towards LONGER and LONGER terms.
“As benefits expire, long-term unemployed make do with less”
If an unemployed person was living paycheck-to-paycheck when they were employed, they’re probably making do with less even with their unemployment benefit payment. However, the clock is still ticking. When their benefits are completely exhausted the countdown continues and it runs much faster. For some, a growing sense of dread comes with situational awareness, especially if they have aspirations to excel in their chosen profession. More and more it becomes a rare thing that a person has the luxury of loving or even liking their job but it’s not just unfortunate, it’s traumatic (”by no fault of their own”).
For this kind of thing to be happening for the past 5 1/2 years is not attributable to some kind of new “normal”, it’s Obama’s way of abusing his authority for the purpose of making people “feel him” and because this has been going on for so long, it’s not inappropriate to regard he and his administration as serial economic molesters.
The most tragic part of it all is that some people seem to have volunteered for that kind of treatment.
Maybe she isn’t quite the one to hold up so we can all feel sorry, $2,000/ month isn’t bad and at least they have savings to tap into to pay bills. She didn’t complain about missed payments and collection phone calls.
I feel for the unemployed but if I was out of work for 4 years I would be one buff dude.
She may find some ambulance service that might hire her, but I doubt it.
She should go to work at a grocery store starting at the bottom, in a year or two she would probably make the same as she did before and with benefits.
FROM THE MARKET.
She has no one willing to hire her at her old wage, so she is not worth the wage she was getting before more than likely.
For her children she should consider WalMart, McDonalds, Seven Eleven and so forth.
Trista should think about using her knowledge of couponing to start a business. Offer couponing classes or even offer to cut the coupons and organize them for people who are too busy or just want to outsource it to someone with more expertise. Maybe advertise in her community that she would do the grocery shopping for elderly folks who find it hard to get out and shop.
How many people are looking outside their comfort zone? Just my industry there are LOTS of opportunities for machinists. There are retraining programs even in my little city. It is crappy in Obamaville, I know. But after 99 weeks, come on. There is nothing you could have done after all that time?
Not going to go into a long detailed story except to say that I’ve been able to make it pretty decently on about fifteen to eighteen grand a year (granted, I own my own house, car and have no kids), so it is possible to live on less if you’re frugal.
I will also say that there are so many government-caused issues (requiring an expensive and difficult-to-obtain license for something you’re already good at is one of many) that make a good living all but impossible nowadays that it sickens me whenever I hear anyone claim that government is the solution.