Which means I will no longer be purchasing a Boston Globe. I've had to cut my budget in half due to no income, and the few dollars a week need to be used elsewhere.
"Long-term unemployed finding few resources for help" by Megan Woolhouse | Globe Staff, March 31, 2013
For the millions of Americans who have been unemployed for many months or even years, help is not on the way.
Tell me something I don't already know.
Many economists, policy makers, and social services workers agree that long-term unemployment is perhaps the most intractable problem left by the last recession....
The recession never ended.
The economy has been improving, the stock market rising, and overall unemployment declining, but the number of long-term unemployed remains near record levels. Nearly 4 million Americans have been out of work for a year or more, representing almost 30 percent of all unemployed — triple the 10 percent before the recession, according to government statistics.
The statistics are similar in Massachusetts....
There are few programs targeted at the long-term unemployed, who face particular obstacles in getting back to work, including the view by many employers that they are damaged goods. Economists say that a hard truth of the labor market is the longer people are unemployed, the less likely it is they will find jobs again.
These casualties of the recession — many age 45 and older — often struggle in isolation to find jobs, exhausting their unemployment benefits. Many fear being outspoken about the issue because it could hurt their chances of getting hired. They battle age discrimination as well as perceptions that they are more expensive to hire or lack up-to-date skills.
“They just seem to be lost,” said Tom McFarland, spokesman for Operation ABLE, a Boston nonprofit that helps unemployed older people. “These people have no hope, no advocacy out there and they need it.”
Related: A New Golden Age For Corporate Profits
Debate over policies to address long-term unemployment has been sidelined by political standoffs in Washington and repeated failures by Congress to resolve budget differences. One result of these standoffs is the massive automatic federal spending cuts known as “sequestration,” which will reduce emergency federal unemployment benefits....
As if unemployment benefits were an answer.
Heidi Shierlholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, called the never-ending debate a tragedy for the long-term unemployed, who are left with few resources. Unlike most states, which are constrained by constitutional requirements for balanced budgets, she said, the federal government has the means to help the long-term unemployed and accelerate the pace of the economic recovery.
The failure of political leaders to agree on budget issues has prevented this help from coming, she said. The economy is adding jobs, she said, but at a rate that is too slow to provide much relief from long-term unemployment.
Nigel Gault, chief US economist for IHS Global Insight, a Lexington forecasting firm, said the problem of long-term unemployment is a chronic one in the United States and Europe that has no easy solution. When unemployment benefits end, those who remain unemployed sometimes give up looking, some taking a forced early retirement, and others seek government disability benefits.
It may come to that.
“For some people, it’s a way out,” Gault said of disability payments.
Suffolk University economist David Tuerck said he supports eliminating unemployment benefits and other social safety-net programs, such as food stamps, because they discourage workers from doing whatever it takes to get a job.
Spoken by a true ivory tower a**hole.
Proposals to raise the minimum wage should be scrapped too, he said, because it discourages employers from hiring.
A real iron law of wages guy, huh?
I did the shit job for over two years until I just couldn't take any more humiliation and unhappiness. Sorry.
“The banks have been saved, the Federal Reserve has steadily kept interest rates low, the stock market has done well. Why is it we can’t get more people employed?” Tuerck said. “Employers have weak incentives to hire, exacerbated by the minimum wage. And workers have a strong incentives to stay unemployed.”
Oh my God!
In the absence of any clear federal or state effort to help long-term unemployed, many people rely on career networking groups. Wednesday Is Networking Day, or WIND, is one of those groups, offering several meetings a week in church basements and other locations around Eastern Massachusetts....
--more--"
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Unemployment Check
I never got one.
Btw, when I don't buy a Globe I don't read a Globe, and when I don't read a Globe I don't go the Globe's website. I would expect more NoPPs without a familiar format and similar style, dear readers, as I dump drafts and toss out my stacks of unread, quarter-read, and half-read Globes. If I didn't get to your story or your issue, I'm sorry, but I thank you for your time and attention.
