Posted on 08/02/2010 3:18:07 PM PDT by reaganaut1
...
Ms. Jarrin is part of a hard-luck tribe of jobless whose members have taken to calling themselves “99ers,” because they have exhausted the maximum 99 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits that they can claim.
For them, the resolution recently of the lengthy Senate scrum over extending jobless benefits was no balm. The measure renewed two federal programs that extended jobless benefits in this recession beyond the traditional 26 weeks to anywhere from 60 to 99 weeks, depending on the state’s unemployment rate. But many jobless have now exceeded those limits. They are adjusting to a new, harsh reality with no income.
With long-term unemployment at record levels, about 1.4 million people were out of work for 99 weeks or more in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not all of them received unemployment benefits, but for many of those who did, the modest payments were a lifeline that enabled them to maintain at least a veneer of normalcy, keeping a roof over their heads, putting gas in their cars, paying electric and phone bills.
Without the checks, many like Ms. Jarrin, who lost her job as director of client services at a small technology company in March 2008, are beginning to tumble over the economic cliff. For them, the last vestiges of their former working class or middle-class lives are gone; it is inescapable now that they are indigent.
Ms. Jarrin said she wept as she drove away from her old life last month, wondering if she would ever be able to reclaim it.
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Nevertheless, the political appetite to help people like Ms. Jarrin appears limited.
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She says none of her three adult sons are in a position to help her.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Maybe raising the minimum wage about 10% last summers wasn't a great idea? Maybe we should stop scaring the heck out of potential employers?
Maybe Obama should make it a law that you have to have a job.
That’s how they fixed health care right? {sarc}
I want to go back to 2005, when we had the worst economy since the depression and unemployment was around 5%. I’ve had enough of “recovery summer” with its 10% unemployment (16% when you count the underemployed).
Maybe we should stop importing a million new desperate job seekers a year who MUST be hired in preference to Americans because Affirmative Action demands it?
Obama obviously loves the chronically unemployed, he’s making so many of them.
Before it’s over, they’ll all be wishing they had one of those $10.00 an hour jobs they wouldn’t take while the unemployment checks were rolling in.
It’s been almost 2 years for my brother. He says, “What do you expect me to do? Take a $10.00 an hour job and lose my house?”
It’s always the house he’ll be losing. Not the wife’s cigarette habit, or the dog, the 3 cats, or the lottery tickets, or the daily energy drinks and other non-essentials.
Never any of these things that will be lost, it’ll be his house, according to him for not be able to make the mortgage payment.
I told him, “Work TWO $10.00 an hour jobs.”
What would the pioneers and the people that built this nation say about such people?
Ms. Jarrin said she wept as she drove away from her old life last month, wondering if she would ever be able to reclaim it.
Someone who can hang out for 99 weeks without making something happen probably doesn’t have the drive and imagination to make it in this new economy. She should marry a decent man and work at keeping him happy.
You could lower the minimum wage $1.50 today, and it's not going to fix this economic disaster.
Deport several hundred thousand illegals every week from the U.S., and reform the endless chain immigration, lower business taxes, and dramatically reduce the size of the federal government and only then you'll start to see some improvements.
Well Obama, Democrats and RINOs want to keep 20 to 30 million illegals in the country doing jobs that Americans cannot get access to in some cases. Employers want to pay nothing and get slaves or thanks to affirmative action they have to hire minorities with green cards and no green cards.
They are living above their means....that is what they would say for starters....
There should be no minumum wage.
How about ending Free Trade with Communist China, NAFTA, CAFTA....and all the other Liberal Globalist trade deals.
You can put America back to work by bringing jobs back.
Too many support Free Trade endorsed by the UN, George Soros, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, the Clintons, Obama, etc....Looks like the US is looking more like the EU everyday
We have Economic Failure....
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
There is, it's called family members.
Shelter system? Have you heard what Section 8 has been up to lately?????
“Her three grown sons are unable to help her.” Have to wonder about her parentling skills.
Wonder why not?
...or even more likely, force businesses to pay the salary of a government worker assigned to that business.
But when you’re as spread out as my family is, you need to hold onto some money for a U-Haul truck to move your stuff halfway across the country and store it in a mini storage place.
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