As Irrelevant as the Unemployed

Four and a half years ago, I was laid off from a major drug store chain where I had been employed for almost six years; first as a cashier  then as a shift supervisor and assistant store manager. The reason for the dismissal of many salaried assistant managers had more to do with the chain's financial difficulties than it did with the quality of work we produced. Indeed, many of us were steady, middle aged employees. The problem had to do with the company buying another drug store chain. The stock went from $7 per share prior to the transaction to less than .25 per share. The company found itself 6 BILLION dollars in debt. Suddenly, they chose to take salaried positions and make them hourly. This meant fewer employees to do more work with fewer hours and for less money and fewer benefits. Older workers were especially targeted, hence, I was laid off.

Unfortunately for me, this was 2009 and the height of the Great Recession. I never had much difficulty finding another job in the past so I wasn't overly worried until six months had passed with few interviews and no employment. The months dragged on into a year and unemployment benefits ran out. I had long since lost health insurance coverage. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me that I couldn't find a job. I had been working since I was in high school so it wasn't a case where I had little or no working experience. It took some time but I started running across articles which pointed to age discrimination AND discrimination against the unemployed as chief factors in the long term unemployment of older job applicants. Finally, I knew I was not alone but that did not help my situation much. I became very depressed and found myself needing professional psychological help because of how serious the depression had become. In my case, the illness was my salvation. I received the help I needed but was classified disabled because of my diagnoses of Bi-Polar Disorder, Autism and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This was enough for me to be able to tap into my earned Social Security benefits and Medicaid. Without the severe financial stress, my life became more stable but still without employment.

Once again, I discovered that I am far from alone. Though the recession is supposedly behind us, many, many long-term unemployed remain. According to Dean Baker and Kevin Hassett  ( "The Human Disaster", New York Times, May 13, 2012):

In 2007, before the Great Recession, people who were looking for work for more than six months — the definition of long-term unemployment — accounted for just 0.8 percent of the labor force. The recession has radically changed this picture. In 2010, the long-term unemployed accounted for 4.2 percent of the work force. That figure would be 50 percent higher if we added the people who gave up looking for work.

A disproportionate of the long-term unemployed are older workers (over 50) and the prospects for employment are fairly dismal.

A worker between ages 50 and 61 who has been unemployed for 17 months has only about a 9 percent chance of finding a new job in the next three months. A worker who is 62 or older and in the same situation has only about a 6 percent chance. As unemployment increases in duration, these slim chances drop steadily (ibid).

With dimming job prospects, the long-term unemployed face increased emotional, financial and even health crises. While the emotional and financial crises may be somewhat predictable, if awful, the effects of unemployment on a persons health is less self-evident. According to Baker and Hassett, however, the life expectancy for a male long-term unemployed person drops by a year and a half. Reasons for this include suicide:

 A recent study found that a 10 percent increase in the unemployment rate (say from 8 to 8.8 percent) would increase the suicide rate for males by 1.47 percent. This is not a small effect. Assuming a link of that scale, the increase in unemployment would lead to an additional 128 suicides per month in the United States. The picture for the long-term unemployed is especially disturbing. The duration of unemployment is the dominant force in the relationship between joblessness and the risk of suicide (ibid).

This fact alone is reason for the government to intervene to create jobs but there is more. There are causal links between long-term unemployment and cancer, heart disease and psychiatric problems. There are also negative effects on the immediate family. Divorce is much more likely as is negative achievement of children in school (ibid). What this demonstrates is that unemployment of six months or longer is a crisis, not only for the worker but for family and for society as a whole. This crisis ought to have been addressed long ago but it has largely gone unnoticed by the governmental bodies able to assist. Congress has done nothing. The White House has ignored us with no mention of the long-term unemployed in months, if not years. It is as if we no longer exist. We are invisible. We are, seemingly, irrelevant.

Dear GOP

What do you want of me? I am poor and unemployed and disabled. I have been unemployed since 2009, have been unable to find a job and the stress from this, my finances, my mother's health and the loss of my own access to health care finally took their toll. I crashed emotionally and became very depressed and suicidal.  I did not have insurance so I was afraid to seek help but I did anyway. I was referred to Easter Seals where I received help applying for Social Security and Medicaid/SNAP. When these were approved, I had my diagnoses and appropriate treatment begun, my life started to even out. I now know that I am Bi-Polar, suffer from major-depression and have a mild form of autism. It was the autism which caused my problems in work environments but I didn't know that for most of my life. Now that I do, my life makes far more sense and I know what I can and cannot do. Most work settings are NOT appropriate for me.

Just as I got my life in order, I started hearing things like, "GOP seeks to cut Social Security", "GOP seeks cuts to SNAP" "Michigan GOP blocks Medicaid Expansion".  Exactly what do you want from people like me? You have no problem continuing tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% but people like me are expected to fall through the now tattered and torn social "safety net." While the wealthy live high on the hog, the poor, the elderly and the disabled are expected to just go away.  Each and every day you make it more difficult for us to get help. You seem to prefer if 1 out of every 6 people in this country go hungry. Somehow you think it wrong that the unemployed receive the benefits we need to survive. You seem to prefer if 45 million Americans go without health insurance. It is better, in your minds, that the poor, elderly and disabled face hunger, hopelessness and homelessness than the wealthy be asked to pay one more cent in taxes. The logic and morality of that stance eludes me. It certainly isn't consistent with the preaching and life of the Jesus you all seem fond of in the abstract. Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple. He told the rich young man to give away everything in order to be able to follow him. The Jesus of the Bible doesn't seem to be the Jesus of the GOP or Tea Party.

None of what you say or do about those in need makes any sense to me. If the unemployed receive what we need to survive then money would go back into the economy and more jobs would be created. If the poor receive SNAP, once again, not only do we eat (and therefore do not get sick and create pressure on the health system) but we also buy food and help to create jobs and help the economy. If  45 million Americans have health insurance then we will not need to use the more expensive emergency rooms for routine illnesses. These alternatives make far more sense but who am I to question your ability or motives?

I am a citizen who votes, one who participates in the electoral process. I am not like your corporate handlers who buy their way to power. But your wealthy friends and you do not represent America.  The United States is better than your limited vision.  America can stretch further than you can see. We can take care of one another and we will, in spite of you and without your narrow point of view.

Is The Democratic Party Inclusive Enough?

I find it interesting that since I have developed severe depression (currently seeking help), I have been uninvited from volunteering for democratic campaigns. Most notably,  Sander Levin for Congress. This hurts the most because the first political campaign I ever worked on was when Sandy Levin ran for Governor of Michigan in 1974. I was in high school and spent a lot of time stuffing and licking envelopes, licking stamps and making phone calls. He has been my congressman for most of the time since 1984 and I worked on campaigns for him off and on, especially in 1992 when I was precinct captain. The off years mostly had to do with work schedules. I have always been a supporter of the congressman. Now, to be uninvited from being a volunteer makes me a little sick to my stomach. Yes, I am suffering from depression. I would think it would be understandable given the fact that I have been unemployed for 3 1/2 years, have no income, no health insurance, no assets and my 78 year old mother has Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma but still has to work in order to keep a roof over our heads. I have creditors dogging me day and night and our condo is worth less than 1/4 of what it is mortgaged for. So yes, I AM depressed. I can't find a job and that makes me feel worthless in and of itself.  

A large part of the reason I got involved with the Obama Campaign in February as a Spring Fellow was to keep myself busy and work on a great cause. Not to mention having something I could put on my resume. I was feeling really good about myself during that period. But the Fellowship ended and the leadership changed in Oakland County and I ended up the odd one out. I needed to be hired on a Field Organizer in order to be able to afford to keep driving to Pontiac but that didn't happen. So, I started volunteering for Sandy Levin. I did mailings, phone calling, walked in parades and a lit drop. Then the depression  and generalized anxiety disorder really hit and suddenly I was no longer welcome. 

I find it fascinating that so many people in his district are either unemployed and suffering from mental illness or both. They/we are still voting constituents. The mentally ill still deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. Yes, it is uncomfortable sometimes. But if  someone with a mental illness (especially depression) wants to volunteer, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't people with mental illness or 
developmental disabilities be active in the Democratic Party? This is another challenge to the Democratic Party to be as inclusive as they claim to be.  

*ALL content herein is the opinion of the author

Republican Pharisees

I find it fascinating that a government body (The US House of Representatives) which meets for a maximum of 4 days per week (more usually 3 1/2 T-Th) can sit and debate taking away affordable health care from the American people but it has not, in 1 1/2 years, acted to create ONE American job. The Republicans spent all day debating the repeal of the AHCA, which has just been declared to be constitutional by the US Supreme Court. They sit and they waste time while REAL people are REALLY hurting in this country! They allow the CROOKS (banks) of this country to accrue TRILLIONS of dollars while not ONE of them has been jailed for destroying the nation's economy. They sit there and insist that the nation's wealthiest people need their tax cuts while they equally insist on paying for those tax cuts on the backs of the poor. 

The Republicans often identify as conservative Christians. They can call themselves anything they like but their ideology is the furthest thing from any of the teachings of Jesus. They ARE, however, pretty much right in line with those of the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' day. If Jesus were here today, based on the words in red in the New Testament (and the Prophets in the Old), He would condemn the GOP in the strongest possible terms, especially the ones who profess to follow Him. The Biblical record is clear: G-d Judges those who oppress the widowed, the poor and the sick and imprisoned. If those in the Republican party and the 1% who call themselves Christians do not repent and turn away from evildoing they WILL be Judged. Count on it. This IS the Word of G-d (Isaiah through John).

P.S I am NOT the agent of Judgement nor is anyone I know or do not know. Judgement usually comes in the form of the consequences of our own actions, not at the hand of someone else. 

Internships For Those Who Don't Fit The Mold

I know that most internships are about giving bright young people hands on experience (and providing cheap labor) but what if there was a model where there were internships set up and designed for people (of all ages) who have been overlooked for various reasons even though they are ALSO bright and talented? Yes, it would take more work but is there no one who is willing to go that extra mile? People with Asperger's could be writers or IT in an office or do research. Yes, it would take more work to design an internship for an individual but the hand up it gives could do wonders for the person and help the person's prospects for employment, thus reducing the overall cost to society. 

Many people with Asperger's Syndrome are chronically underemployed or unemployed. Setting up internships for those who are capable, on the higher end of the Autism Spectrum could be a way to reduce that burden to them and to society. The same might be true with other forms of disability or even those workers who have been unemployed for a long time through no fault of their own. Many people simply need a hand up, not a hand-out.

Is there ANYONE out there with an interest in a project like this? 

*ALL content herein is the opinion of the author