Posted on 03/11/2003 11:40:19 AM PST by Jimmyclyde
Unemployed at 62, his plight may be a sign of the times
by Margery Eagan Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Here in the living room of what feels like a cozy English country cottage - china-blue walls, hand-painted antique chairs, latticed windows and fine woods - it's hard to believe the once-comfortable occupants are down to their last $2,500.
Not enough to pay their $2,000 monthly rent and $1,200 health insurance, never mind food or heat or gas.
But that's the very scary story of North Easton couple Dick Wilcox, 62, and his wife, Michele, 56. Dick was laid off from his $65,000, mid-level insurance company job a year ago. He cannot afford to retire.
And as a nation obsesses over war, its politicians seeming to forget the crushing effects of a jittery economy, Dick Wilcox has joined the unenviable ranks of older, unemployed, white-collar workers who can't find another decent job.
``It's like all it takes,'' Dick Wilcox said yesterday, ``is one crack in the system and you can go from having a really good lifestyle to being literally homeless.''
To prevent that is why he's spent three months now, morning after frigid morning, at busy Canton intersections. He wears fat mittens and a hooded parka over a neat suit and tie. And like an upscale version of your average street corner beggar, lifelong, middle-class taxpayer Dick Wilcox stands with a mix of humiliation, desperation and defiance behind the 4-by-6-foot plywood sign he made in his basement. And he begs, too.
``I NEED A JOB. 508-238-3226.'' That's what his sign reads in big black letters. ``36 Yrs. Exper. Insur/Mngmnt.''
Dick Wilcox has dropped off hundreds of resumes at companies and office parks. He's sent out hundreds more online. He's had two interviews and not a single job offer near the $50,000 he needs.
Now his severance, unemployment, modest savings and pension are almost gone. Michele Wilcox, who raised three children and supplemented Dick's income with a home crochet business, brought in just $9,000 this year. Her small business is yet another victim, it appears, of a shrinking economy.
A year ago, the couple planned to help an infertile daughter finance an expensive overseas adoption. They'd hoped to replace a 12-year-old car. Now, even if both find $10-an-hour jobs tomorrow, they're on the brink of losing their home.
Dick Wilcox, who has a can-do, take-charge aura about him - and unique ideas on making older workers more attractive - says he's still a bit stunned by it all. ``When I first lost my job I said, `Well, it's not the end of the world. I'll go out and find something else . . .' I never expected . . . this.''
Here is the good and bad news. Last week, his story made the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Since then he's had hundreds of phone calls, mostly from other older laid-off workers who are discouraged, too, ``and practically crying on the phone,'' he says. ``Out of work nine months, 14 months. Unbelievable, terrible stories.''
But he's also had calls from other media outlets, including nationally syndicated radio shows, cable TV's NECN and two of the three big morning network shows: ``Good Morning America'' and ``The Early Show.'' But the morning shows keep delaying him, he says, because of war stories.
Meanwhile, he says, not a single politician has called. ``They'd much rather debate the war than talk about the economy because they don't have any solutions. They just keep promising the economy's going to turn around. . . Now they don't even say it anymore and we've got tens of thousands out of work.''
Although media coverage has led to at least one promising interview offer, Dick Wilcox is taking no chances. He plans to be out again tomorrow morning, the corner of Route 138 and Washington Street, where people have climbed over snowbanks to shake his hand or bring him Dunkin' Donuts. ``One woman tapped me on the shoulder with tears in her eyes. She said, `This is the gutsiest thing I ever saw anybody do.' ''
He says that when he first thought of the sign, he was afraid to tell his wife or children. He was embarrassed, scared he'd seem like a failure, like ``some idiot'' standing in the road.
Yesterday, Michele Wilcox said she'd admired her husband's daring. Yesterday Karen Wilcox, their oldest child, said her father ``had proven us all wrong'' for ever fretting about his sign. She said her father had worked hard all his life and that when she heard him last week on the radio, ``I had tears in my eyes. . . . I'm so proud of him.''
Hell, the GOVERNMENT is laying off here!
This can make sense for middle aged workers, and we should all be very concerned and sympathetic and as helpful as we can be for those people. But for a 62 year old to spend all his severance and retirement fund unrealistically "trying to hold on" is just nuts.
There was a WSJ article on this guy last week with more financial details. The bottom line was that he had around $25,000 in severance pay and $13,000 in a retirement fund. Common sense should have told him that his chances for getting a comparable again anytime soon or ever, were very very small. Having royally screwed up his finances by RENTING all these years, he could still have improved his dire situation by ditching the house quickly, and paying cash for a little home in a semi-rural area (you can get a decent mobile home or similar size regular home on an acre or so for $20,000 in many areas, and the taxes are next to nothing in those areas). Then he and his wife would have a home that nobody could kick them out of, and with their meager retirement fund plus social security (he has to have a decent SS income, as he's worked in good jobs for 36+ years), they could afford health insurance, food, heat, a modest used vehicle, and a very few "extras". Of course he threw this security out the window when he spent his entire severance package on RENT!, AFTER it was clear that he was in a desperate predicament.
AMEN!!
Some of these people need one to make them appreciate what they have. The morons who pan this guy just don't realize that life can turn on a dime. Your character is determined then not by being a loudmouth now
I think a lot of these loudmouths would fail the test.
Geez anyone who could kick a sixty year old man who worked all his life and ends up out so they can replace him with a 25 year old making 2/3s of what he was paid is a complete cad.
Point taken. But if he had...and it was done properly, he should be in decent shape. I mean the stocks aren't worthless. I reconfigured mine a bit and it bounced back. It's not a fire and forget kind of thing.
The arrogence of youth melts slowly with time..Most of these babies have not seen how quickly the tide can change.
As I said earlier we raised 7 children without a hand out..This man in the article was not asking you to give him your money..but only a heartless man could not appreciate the fear this man must be feeling
Many times it is the old employees who keep things running at all. They know what to do. That's important.
Agreed..But I find the " let them eat cake" attitude of the posters here indicitive of the selfish "me " generation..
Blessed are the meek..they will inherit the earth.
When I was hungry you fed me
These are not "liberal " principles..they are spiritual.... If this is the kind of "conservatives " that look to run the Nation we are going the way of Rome..that is a sure bet
Well perhaps those professors need to talk to businesses that now look for older workers..seems they take fewer days off and responmd to supervision better..There is a tech gap..but most of the people over 50 are still "trainable"..
I don't think so. The babies just haven't been tested yet. Many of them will be "old fools" 30 years from now.
For a long time, conventional wisdom was that the three legs of retirement were pension, SS, and savings. Pensions have become rarer - which should have been a clue that savings should have gone up, but no - immediate life-style mattered more.
And SS is not going to stay this way. It can't. Will savings go up? I think not.
There will be as many old fools 30-40 years from now as there are today. And they will be the babies that you'd think would learn.
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