Tier 5 and extended unemployment benefits: letters to Congress from the long-term unemployed

by damp fang

I received more than 300 letters from those who submitted letters to the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support .

The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support held a hearing on June 10 titled: Hearing on Responding to Long-Term Unemployment. I asked readers of Rochester Unemployment Examiner to send me letters they wrote to the Committee that they also wanted to have published.* Below are a few of those letters. I’ll be posting other letters on a regular basis.

While you can no longer submit letters to House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support hearing, you can send your letters to me at mike@layofflist.org and I’ll publish them here or at http://layofflist.org. Your stories are important and hopefully some of the clueless ones in Congress read them to see how their actions, or inactions, can harm Americans from all corners of the nation.

I want to thank all of you for including me in your letters to the Hearing. I will do my best to reply to each and every one of you.

As you can see from the following letters, this jobless recession has affected people of varied careers, education, and backgrounds. While many Americans will be celebrating the July 4th holiday, there will be millions who won’t be in a celebratory mood because their congressional representatives have abandoned them at the worst possible time.

Here are those letters:

From TM in GA:

To whom it may concern,

On April 7th 2010 I received my last unemployment check. A week prior, my children’s father was murdered, leaving me as the sole parent of our 2 and 4 year old boys. The combination of events made things VERY hard on me.

I didn’t know how I was going to pay my rent. I had already received a late notice adding a $50.00 fee to the amount due.

After racking my brain, I finally broke down and called my mother, who paid for May and June’s rent.

I have been {endlessly} looking for work. My background is in office work but at this point I will do any kind of work. The problem is, I keep hearing “the position has already been filled”. And in other fields, I get beat out by people with more experience.

It’s enough to drive a person crazy. And as much as I try not to let it get to me, I can’t help thinking about myself and my children’s future. What happens in July, will we get put out of our home?

The one thing I’m sure of, is that I God has a plan for us.

My mom just retired June 4th after working 47 years. I feel so guilty even taking a dime from her. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t GREATFUL for the gift.

I know plenty of people are still worried about losing their homes, and one who already has.

His name is Kenny. Kenny was evicted at the end of May. He was raising his 11 year old son who ultimately had to be sent back to New York because his father could no longer provide for him.

The bottom line is that the existing homeless shelters are not equipped to handle the population of homeless people there will be, if Tier V is not signed into law.

And the government would still have to pay to house the homeless population brought on by the economy. So why not put that money in the hands of the millions of Americans who desperately need it.

We’ve been through enough.

I think that it’s the responsibility of the government to ensure that Americans get back on their {our} feet. And support us until we do. The economy crashing was not our fault.

Sincerely,

From VS in OR:

I am writing in an effort to make my voice heard in support of addressing the needs of the long-term unemployed and the critical need for adding TIER V unemployment benefits.

I have worked hard my entire life to be independent and support myself and my children. As a divorced single mother, times have always been tight but I still managed to raise my 4 children with their self esteem and values intact. No easy task in this day and age! I have worked in the mortgage industry for the past 15+ years. As the economy started to tighten, the company I was working for decided to prepare for the possible financial melt-down ahead and layoffs ensued. September 7, 2007 I became unemployed. Not an easy spot to be in at 53, little to no savings to survive on and at the same time inflation is making daily living more expensive. Luckily the employment benefits were barely enough to somehow make ends meet while looking for work. I have learned to live without many things, making do with what I have and tapping into whatever talents I can to try and make an extra dollar or two to squeeze by another month. I try not to think about my lack of any form of medical insurance; Being a heart-bypass patient, I am now almost 3 years overdue for a full cardiology checkup that is required to maintain a healthy state.

The job market is pretty thin for a 53-year-old who needs to make at least $17 per hr to survive. For what few job openings are available there are literally thousands of people (most much younger than I) with career paths in mind willing to work for much less. Looking outside the mortgage industry doesn’t help….then I’m not considered to have the “experience” necessary for jobs I could easily do. In a nutshell, it hasn’t been for lack of looking that has kept me out of work for this long. My employment benefits were completely exhausted in early May. At this point I have no income. I cannot borrow money from my mother…..she is 72 and on a fixed income. My children are all struggling to survive themselves. I am numb and do not know what to do or where to turn. Should a life of working and toil bring anyone to this predicament??? I don’t think so.

It’s a fact that the financial and employment sectors will not fully recover for quite some time. In the meantime, the number of 99er’s like myself are quickly growing as benefits run out. PLEASE DON’T TURN YOUR BACKS ON US!!! We are desperate for your help to merely put food on the table and keep shelter over our heads through rough financial times not of our creation. Close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine what it must feel like to only have a couple of items available in your kitchen cupboard or having to face your morning with a cold shower because the electric bill couldn’t be paid. Or worse yet, there is no water at all because you can no longer afford to live in a home. Then open your eyes, look into mine and tell me that we live in the land of plenty where anything is possible.

Please help your fellow citizens in need and add TIER V unemployment benefits to help us get by just a bit longer.

Thank you for your consideration,

From RP in ID:

Dear Chairman McDermott and honorable committee members,

I am a 56-year-old adult male Registered Nurse. I am a ’99er’ having been unemployed for over 2 years.

I am scared and in real trouble now, having used up all my savings and assets since becoming unemployed on December 31, 2007. I have lost my health Insurance, as I was never able to get assistance with COBRA…

I live in the Northern Idaho Panhandle, a beautiful area, though with the exception of its high unemployment levels, I am at the end of my rope, and have no place left to turn. I do hope this committee’s hearing will help congress break its current deadlock, reinstate EUC benefits and add additional tiers to the current 1-4 tiers.

Weekly unemployment checks have literally been all that is keeping me in a home and off the streets and homeless rolls. It should not be this hard to survive in our great country I worked in a specialized Nursing Field, Drug Detox, and with all the program cutbacks in the past couple years in the social ‘safety net’ fields such as community Drug and Alcohol Detoxification centers, I see myself in the same difficult position as many former clients. No I don’t have ‘recovery or drug issues’ just no more money, assets, savings, or places to borrow from… unable to find work in this economy.. In addition, my job search is more difficult as more Nurses delay their retirements, and many people remain unemployed and on the “Job Search” rolls.

I am writing to urge you and Congress to please take action on adding additional Tiers to the Emergency federal unemployment benefit extensions, including the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program and full federal funding of Extended Benefits, as well as the $25 per week Federal Additional Compensation supplement.

I am among Millions of Americans who desperately need help!

Please, act now and make sure that millions do not face continuing joblessness coupled with an end to benefits that have kept us afloat as far as we continue our job searches, and await the return of robust job creation and hiring.

Thank you for your help.

From GR in NJ:

I have been unemployed since July 1, 2008, due to downsizing. I was a high school guidance counselor in Northern New Jersey. I am 55, a single mother, with an undergraduate degree in Business and Consumer Studies, a Master’s degree in Secondary Education, and 30 additional graduate credits in counseling and education to complete my School Guidance Counselor Certification (1/2003). I have 5-½ years experience as a HS Guidance Counselor; prior to this I had experience as a HS Business Education Teacher. I have been very aggressively applying for guidance counselor positions, as well as sending resumes out to job postings in variant fields. It is like my resumes are going into a “black hole.” I have gotten no responses. I have been on 3 High School Guidance Counselor interviews; none of which resulted in a job offer. I am trying again to obtain a guidance counselor position for this upcoming school year 2010-2011. I have sent out a myriad of resumes and have not received one phone call. There is state-aid cut to education here in New Jersey, as well as commensurate school budget cuts going on. There are many less jobs advertised. I have extended my commutation radius, still with no luck. In addition, I have been applying for Business Education Teaching jobs with no luck, as my experience in this type of job ended 6/2001 and there are very few jobs that match my credentials.

The newspaper has very few help-wanted ads. Further, I have registered with a half-dozen employment agencies. They have been able to offer me nothing, except office temp work, which is low paying and not steady. I have been sending out resumes on my own off job ads on Craigslist and the occasional newspaper listing. I have no luck at this either. With employment experience in the field of education primarily, I am out of my field and inexperienced when seeking employment in another sector. Additionally, I can no longer compete with the younger applicant.

There are too many unemployed people and not enough jobs. There are too many applicants per job opening. I have been told by one employer that there are hundreds of resumes received per opening. I am also finding that there is age discrimination—employers favoring the hiring of younger, cheaper employees.

I have not been able to secure a full-time employment position that offers me the ability to support myself. I have been trying to piece together part-time work, however, I have been unsuccessful at attaining financial self-sufficiency via this arena.

As I mentioned earlier, you can send your letters to me at mike@layofflist.org and I’ll publish them here or at http://layofflist.org. Your stories are important and hopefully some of the clueless ones in Congress read them to see how their actions, or inactions, can harm Americans from all corners of the nation.

*Due to issues such as software compatibility, the letters posted here may contain some minor formatting edits to improve readability.

The following is a reminder to Congress that the long-term unemployment problem is not improving.

According to the BLS, there are 6.751 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This is a record 4.39% of the civilian workforce. (note: records started in 1948). It does appear the increases are slowing … perhaps because people are giving up.

Here’s the daily list;

If you want to help out my site, I would appreciate it if you would subscribe to my posts. This is a simple task of clicking on the Subscribe button above, which is located directly below the title of my post, and then entering your email address. When I add a new post, you will be notified at the email address you enter. You won’t receive any spam, just my posts. Thanks.

Congress.org has a great media contact list:http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/

Another media contact list is located at:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358×1903

Keeping the Tier 5 and extended unemployment issues alive is going to be up to you, so be sure to contact your congressional representatives as often as you can. You need to continue to pressure Congress to act responsibly and to extend benefits for those unable to find work. Send your representative a fax using FaxZero.com. As has been mentioned in the comments section, you can send up to two free faxes a day.

Here’s a great site where you can find both state and federal contact information: http://conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm

Please send your comments and questions to mike@layofflist.org.

I’ll post updates as they are made available. You can also view my updates and new posts at Twitter: http://twitter.com/layofflist

You can also follow numerous unemployment issues on Facebook. My profile is located at Rochester Unemployment-Examiner (dash between Unemployment and Examiner). There are some great groups that support the long term unemployed, so check it out.