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Part of the problem is that Americans have an almost religious belief in the free market. They take the notion that it is good to work and to be productive to an extreme where it becomes obligatory to do that for at least 50 weeks per year. Thus, if you end up unemployed, whether voluntarily (just taking some time off for yourself) or involuntarily, you are committing a huge sin in their view.
Consequently, employers end up discriminating against the unemployed. Suddenly, people who have years of experience performing X and who have degrees in Field X are regarded as being completely incompetent and incapable of performing X because they were unemployed for a couple months.
Those who are upper middle class and smugly and comfortably employed have no concept of what the current labor market is like. If you graduated in the 1950s or 1960s, the job market has been wonderful for you and you were probably able to establish a good career in your chosen field. Today, everyone and their brother is going to college and just about every field has a huge oversupply of college graduates. Seniors who established careers in better times just cannot fathom how hard it is to do today and regard those who are unable to as being complete losers.
Job searching is also problematic when you look outside of your field. Hiring managers have a hard time understanding why you couldn't find a job in Field X when the news media wrongly reports that Field X is booming and lies about a shortage of people in Field X. You are then assumed to be a complete loser since you aren't earning a mint working in Field X.
Regarding the bolded: This 60 y/o who graduated high school in 1969, completely understands the current situation through having to watch my son struggle with trying to find a job in this current economy. Just because my late husband managed to hold the same job for 30+ years before he died, does not mean I don't see the reality of the economic times we live in.
Even in areas of high unemployment, you see the Walmart parking lots filled and many of the shoppers are spending their unemployment checks on - you guessed it - cheap foreign imported products.
When Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, the writing was on the wall, people wanted the cheapest posssible crap and they wanted the cheapest possible servants brought in here illegally to work for dirt. Now we have to pay the piper.
This "liberal" was always against NAFTA. I liked Clinton as president for the most part, but the dumbest thing he ever did in my opinion was to sign NAFTA.
At my work, outside, on the tv, in commentaries in articles the unemployed and unemployed payments have been trashed more than I have ever remembered. People genuinely look down on the unemployed and think of them as lazy and good for nothings. Welfare had that stigma, and now since unemployment benefits have been in the news so much, they have essentially replaced welfare with unemployment in the minds of Americans.
Now that I never thought would happen.
I can see the argument, and here's why:
People who are milking the welfare train are seen, not heard. You never hear them going on the news talking about how they aren't getting enough or how it's not fair that they're only getting X dollars or for X period of time. Sure, you see the occasional one driving around a new car or wearing flashy clothes, but you don't see a lot of welfare advertising.
Meanwhile, people who have been on unemployment for TWO YEARS are the ones writing the media and granting interviews talking about how it's not fair that "their" benefits are being cut off and how hard it is on "them" and how the government needs to protect "them" and blah blah blah. They make it all about them, and they freely tell anyone who will listen that they are ENTITLED to continue receiving their free paychecks.
Right. Where exactly do the haters think UE money goes anyway? We’re paying our mortgages, car payments, bills, utilities, taxes, etc. and barely keeping our heads above water. These folks reveal their true ignorance of what it is actually like to be without a job in a bad economy like this and how frustrating it is looking for work 7 days a week.
True story: I recently decided to relocate back to Seattle, a city I lived in some time ago. I sent out 10 resumes over a weekend (keep in mind that I was not local, and my resume stated as much). By the end of that week, I had SIX offers. Six.
So how is it that you can go 2 years without being able to find ONE employer willing to bring you on, yet I can go less than a week and find half a dozen who are willing to ignore the fact that I didn't even live in the area?
I'm sure it was all luck . Here's a cold hard reality: There are jobs out there. The catch is, there are no jobs that require no skill. You have to have a skill in order to work. And no, if your job can be farmed out to an illiterate 10 year old Chinese boy or an Indian call center, you don' thave a skill.
Last edited by CaseyB; 12-13-2010 at 08:46 AM..
Reason: rude/off topic
1) Working people don't pay that premium. The employers do
2) That fund is designed for 26 weeks, not 99. If you exceed 26 weeks, you're on welfare.
In NJ you have UI deducted from your paycheck.
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Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
. Here's a cold hard reality: There are jobs out there. The catch is, there are no jobs that require no skill. You have to have a skill in order to work. And no, if your job can be farmed out to an illiterate 10 year old Chinese boy or an Indian call center, you don' thave a skill.
