Lucky Duckies On A Bad Trip
by digby
Here's a happy story about the lucky ducky long term unemployed who politicians keep suggesting are refusing to look for work because they want the government to come across with some more of that cushy easy unemployment money:
The job market is improving, but one statistic presents a stark reminder of the challenges that remain: Nearly half of the unemployed—45.9%—have been out of work longer than six months, more than at any time since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1948.
Even in the worst months of the early 1980s, when the jobless rate topped 10% for months on end, only about one in four of the unemployed was out of work for more than six months.
Overall, seven million Americans have been looking for work for 27 weeks or more, and most of them—4.7 million—have been out of work for a year or more.
Long-term unemployment has reached nearly every segment of the population, but some have been particularly hard-hit. The typical long-term unemployed worker is a white man with a high-school education or less. Older unemployed workers also tend to be out of work longer. Those between ages 65 and 69 who still wish to work have typically been jobless for 49.8 weeks.
[...]
"The consequences are worse for those who can't find a job quickly," said Till Marco von Wachter, a Columbia University economist. They extend from atrophying skills to a higher likelihood of unhappiness and anxiety. Workers out of work for a long time tend to find it more difficult to find a job, and "the longer people are unemployed the more likely they are to eventually give up searching and thereby drop out of the labor force," Mr. von Wachter said.
[...]
While blue-collar and construction workers have been battered by the recession, they aren't the only ones hit. Unemployed production workers, including toolmakers, woodworkers and food processors, have been out of work for a median of 38.1 weeks. Unemployed workers whose most recent job was in management, business and financial operations have typically been out of work for 32.3 weeks.
Yeah, they're just a bunch of stoners living high off the hog on their 300 a week. These lazy bums just don't want to work. And congress apparently believes this too. I'm guessing all their big money donors are complaining about it.
Lazy bums like like this:
Richard Moran of Ortonville, Mich., the state with the highest U.S. unemployment rate, hasn't had a job for two-and-a-half years. The 57-year-old, who was laid off from a testing and design job for Chrysler Group LLC, suspects his age is working against him.
Mr. Moran has attended two free training programs. The first, to become a corrections officer, ended at roughly the same time that Michigan was closing prisons amid tightening budgets. He recently finished an auto-parts design course to refresh his skills. "The certificates are piling up," said Mr. Moran, who also has a four-year college degree in mass communications.
While education is helpful, college graduates have also fallen into the ranks of the long-term unemployed. They represent 15.9% of the long-term jobless, compared with 14.9% of all unemployed workers. Those with high school degrees who haven't been to college comprise 40.7% of long-term unemployed, compared with 37.8% of all unemployed workers.
Luckily his wife is still working.
And the really good news for fellows like Moran are that not only did they lose equity in their homes and suffer a huge hit on their 401ks (if they had them), they now can't find a job to start saving again and the government wants to cut their social security. Good times all around.
You couldn't actually blame these people if they did decide to become stoners and just let the world pass them by. Anything to stop the dull ache of knowing that you've worked your whole damned life only to wind up in broke and unemployable through no fault of your own. It's the American Dream turned into a bad trip.
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