The New York Times looks at the impact of being unemployed for years not just months as people were in the past.
Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.
Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.
Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.
One thing that hit me was how slowly the system works, both here and the United States and yet politicians seem uninterested in doing anything about it. There are a couple of NDP and Sask. Party MLA’s readers of this blog and I think it would be a great campaign promise. Let’s get a series of public benchmark’s created, measured, and evaluated for stuff like Social Service benefit delivery (I have heard some horrible stories), emergency room wait lines, elective surgery wait times (you have those already), and also see if we could pressure the feds in speeding delivery of EI and disability checks so people are forced to lose their apartments.
When the company moved to Mexico in the early 1990s, Ms. Eisen quickly found a job at a travel agency. When online booking killed that business, she got the job at the beauty salon equipment company. It paid $13.25 an hour, with an annual bonus — enough for presents under the Christmas tree.
But six years ago, her husband took a fall at work and then succumbed to various ailments — diabetes, liver disease, high blood pressure — leaving him confined to the couch. Not until 2008 did he secure his disability check.
And now they find themselves in this desert of joblessness, her paycheck replaced by a $702 unemployment check every other week. She received 14 weeks of benefits after she lost her job, and then a seven-week extension.
For most of October through December 2008, she received nothing, as she waited for another extension. The checks came again, then ran out in September 2009. They were restored by an extension right before Christmas.
Their daughter has back problems and is living on disability checks, making the church their ultimate safety net.
“I never thought I’d be in the position where I had to go to a food bank,” Ms. Eisen said. But there she is, standing in the parking lot of the Calvary Chapel church, chatting with a half-dozen women, all waiting to enter the Bread of Life Food Pantry.
I am one on the “newly poor list” as a result of bullying in a management change in the gov’t agency I worked at. After three months of EI sick benefits, I faced no income for six months until Long Term Disability came through. I live cautiously every month wondering when I will have to resort to selling my vehicle and house. My medication is expensive and soon will not be covered so any extra money I have by trying to work parttime will just cover medication costs. Utility costs are increasing, fuel for vehicles flucates, food costs are increasing, rent is high, so it looks like my future will be even more bleak. At least I know how to stand in a line and know the agencies where I may be able to seek help from (from my previous employment).