The Other Lost Generation: folks in their 50s unable to find work

[Liberal_in_LA]

This summer, I set out to explore just why long-term unemployment had risen to historic levels -- and stumbled across Rembold. A 56-year-old resident of Mishawaka, Indiana, he caught the unnerving mix of frustration, anger, and helplessness voiced by so many other unemployed workers I'd spoken to. "I lie awake at night with acid indigestion worrying about how I’m going to survive," he said in a brief bio kept by the National Employment Law Project, which is how I found him. I called him up, and we talked about his languishing career, as well as his childhood and family. But a few phone calls, I realized, weren't enough. In early August I hopped a plane to northern Indiana.

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In the end, facing an economy that may never again generate in such quantity the sorts of "middle class" jobs Rembold was used to, what we may be seeing is the creation of a graying class of permanently unemployed (or underemployed) Americans, a genuine lost generation who will never recover from the recession of 2008. As Mike Konczal and Arjun Jayadev of the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank, recently wrote, unemployed workers today are more likely to abandon the workforce than find work -- something never before seen in four decades' worth of labor data. "These workers need targeted intervention," they concluded, "before they become completely lost to the normal labor market."

"All I Need Is One Chance"

I first noticed Rembold’s tic on Sunday, my last day in Indiana. Out of nowhere, without provocation, he'd suddenly say things like "Man, I just need a job," or "All I need is a chance," or "I wanna work, make stuff with my hands." He’d been filling the lulls in our conversations with these little outbursts, symptoms, I assumed, of the worry and anxiety that never left his side. Which is why I called a few weeks after my visit, hoping for good news.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/06/opinion/main6932174.shtml

[maryf]

1. Took my over 50 sister 20 months to find a 6 month temp job...

of course it will allow her more unemployment benefits...

[glitch]

17. Quite a few of us went throught he same thing after the reign of Bush I.

You'd think we'd learn our lesson: looted economies don't employ. And some people making looting economies a family business.

(yeah I know, they had plenty of help)

[rwenos]

2. Join the Club!

I can tell you, it's personally depressing and discouraging. It's been ten months for me. Divorced and living with mom sucks at 57. Hundreds of online resumes, a handful of interviews. Nothing, nothing, nothing. And the sickening part isn't even me -- I at least have family to fall back on. The sickening thing is all the people out there who are truly desperate. No family, no backup, no prospects.

I heard a professional African-American woman say the other day on the noon news, "I am getting tired of defending Obama to everyone." Where's the government? Where's the enforcement of age discrimination laws?

This sucks. Eventually it will suck for everyone.

[truedelphi]

3. I blame the health "reform" bill as much as anything else...

What employer would take someone in their fifties and in addition to possibly being expected to pay out a higher salary as that person has more experience, also pay sky-high mandated insurance premiums?

Especially when during this "recession" there is a glut of younger people willing to work in the older person's place.

[Mimosa]

5. Yes. Hiring older workers bumps up group health insurance premiums

My partner learned from a big company's inside accounting person that's why they only hire people over 50 on a temporary basis.

[mmonk]

6. You mean lack of reform.

America is no country for old men and disabled children.

[Greyhound]

23. Yet another reason this "reform" that put the destroyers of the system in charge

of the system is such a disaster.

We haven't even seen the beginning of how terrible this POS is, yet.

[spinbaby]

27. Medicare for everyone over 50

It makes older workers more attractive to hire and makes sense in other ways, too.

[truedelphi]

33. It really does.

I have watched people in my neighborhood go without food and utilities in order to pay their medical costs. It especially sucks, because all of them were over sixty. But under sixty five.

The people who own their own homes free and clear cannot benefit from the County paid insurance that our household uses.

As there exists the strong likelihood that the County would put a lien on their home for using things like Food Stamps and medical assistance.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

4. I was lucky enough to qualify for SS Disability and retire.

There's something wrong from the base on up with this country.

I am in my 50's and the only reason that we're able to get by is because I have enough health problems that I was "lucky" enough to be deemed disabled.

I looked for over two years and had maybe a half dozen interviews. I know so many other people just in this area who are experiencing exactly what so many in this country are going through. These people might as well be invisible to most employers.

The SS Judge who declared that I was disabled emphasized that one of the main reasons why she was deciding in my favor was this very topic. She said that technically, I could still find a job, but realistically, she said no company is going to hire someone your age with health problems of any sort.

While I very much appreciate the ruling, SS Disability doesn't pay a fortune and I still have a brain that wants to work.

[kath]

20. so lucky that you had such a humane judge. Good on her for making a reality-based ruling!!

[Altoid_Cyclist]

24. I was very fortunate! Many people haven't fared as well as I.

I was rejected for SS the first time and had to go the appeal and Attorney route the second time.

The normal route would have been that a few weeks before the hearing, we would have been informed of the time and had to travel to the regional SS office. Then I found out that while there are three SS Judges assigned to this region, they were actually down to one due to retirement and illness.

Just a little over one year from the date that we filed the appeal, I was still waiting to hear when the appeal hearing would take place. I had heard that because of the backlog, it would probably be another 6 months to a year before my appeal would be heard.

However, a month later my Attorney called to say that I was going to win my appeal once the paperwork was finalized. I don't know how it happened, but my appeal got kicked to a judge in the New Hampshire / Boston region. Not only did she approve my appeal, she dated it back two years to the last day that I actually worked! I owe her a large thank you, but I don't know if it's appropriate to thank a SS Judge who decides in your favor.

The only negative part of this was the stress of those two years and the feeling that it probably added to the factors of my second heart attack the week before the decision was made. She didn't even know about the second MI when she made the decision.

[seabeyond]

7. everyones fucked... lol. nt

[Lost4words]

13. making light of suffering, now there is a virtue for you,

must be nice to be you

[seabeyond]

16. i am part of that everyone. i have lost 40% of our income. i am hurting. must be nice

to be so fuckin judgmental in your fuckin assumptions.

[leftstreet]

8. K&R

[Sanity Claws]

9. I am one of those people

Companies don't even respond to applications.

[Dappleganger]

10. K&R

[peacefreak]

11. At the age of 58 & 2 years unemployed

I finally got a job, at .25 over minimum wage. No guarantee of hours, no way to make rent. Desperate? Yes.

[L0oniX]

12. Lost? ..more like throw aways. What a waste of wisdom and skills.

[Greyhound]

22. It is a waste and one of the big reasons for it is that most younger people

live in the fear that somebody will someday notice they don't know what they're doing.

We have been there, but we grew up with the knowledge that those that came before know more than we did and we learned from them. Nobody used to expect that a person in her twenties was expert at anything so she was put under an older person to teach her. Now, the older people have been fired and hired back as "consultants" with no benefits and the assurance that their time is very limited, we're always working ourselves out of a job, and so are not inclined to tell her anything.

So we finish cleaning up the pile of poop and move on, leaving her with nothing to build on and still with no experience other than time spent not knowing what she's doing. ten years later, she's in the same position with even less knowledge to contribute to the younger man that replaced her, and so on.

Now the boomers are literally obsolete and those of us behind them are seeing our future in their eyes and wondering why the hell we should give a shit, and so on, again.

When the IT field began the first purges in the 90's "management" said, "We're just replacing the juniors, it won't effect you seniors". Even then some of us tried to point out that if you get rid of all the juniors, where do you think the next seniors are going to come from? Result; an entire industry of IT workers that don't know anything beyond what icon to click and which script to paste in one particular tool. If it doesn't work, well just wait until the new "consultant" comes in next week, she'll fix it...
:eyes:

[Lost4words]

14. K & R! nt

[LiberalEsto]

15. I'm obsolete at 58

From 1972 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1997, I worked as a newspaper reporter. Now five of the six papers I worked for have gone out of business, and the one remaining paper has cut its staff again and again with layoffs and early buyouts. I can't go back there because it's in another state, and because they probably couldn't squeeze me back on their staff.

I've worked at miscellaneous jobs over the years, then spent 8 years as a semi-technical marketing writer for a small PR firm. But with the economy as bad as it is, they haven't had any work for me in two years. Thank heavens my husband has a job, but we live paycheck to paycheck with zero savings, and pray the car doesn't break down. If I could afford it, I would take classes, but it's not possible. And my husband makes too much for me to get financial aid. I can't bag groceries: herniated disc and arthritis in knees and ankles.

After having so many job applications ignored over the past couple of years, I've given up looking. The two face-to-face interviews I managed to get didn't pan out, probably because once they saw me, they realized I was an Older Woman.

If I ever manage to find work again, I'll be amazed.

[Daphne08]

21. I'm just a couple of years older than you, and all I can think

about is the American Dream we were promised as we were growing up. Study, work hard and retire with a home of your own. Most of us followed those recommendations, and yet...

Okay, I can live with the death of the American dream, but there is something else I cannot accept. Comments made by many younger people seem to disparage us as unworthy, referring to us as "the boomers" and "the hippie generation" who "are going to steal from us with their Social Security."

Now that really disturbs me on so many levels.

I understand where it's coming from and why, but still, it's really quite depressing.

[LiberalEsto]

29. We've paid a hell of a lot INTO Social Security

It's outrageous to accuse us of planning to steal it.

[L0oniX]

31. If they had their way we would have been put into LSD concentration camps at age 35.

[BarryMeNot]

18. K&R

nt

[Manifestor_of_Light]

19. I quit looking a long time ago.

BA in biology, former legal secretary, former court reporter, holder of a Juris Doctor, looked for a legal assistant job for two years, with the help of my law school's alumni placement office, and got one interview in two years. They weren't nice enough to call me back and tell me I didn't get the job.....

If this country didn't throw people in the trash that are educated, I would be training trial lawyers. But they throw people in the trash.

For this I spent 12 years in college, earned three degrees, a total of nearly 300 semester hours????

Feh....

Too bad I expected to get a decent job, any job. :shrug:

[DCBob]

25. This is really disturbing.. there needs to be some incentives to hire/retain older workers..

I am 55, laid off about 6 months ago and now working as a consultant but of course no benes.

[northernlights]

26. I'll be 57 soon...

Lost my career in the hi-tech crash / post-911. No jobs, none, for the 2 years following 911. Sold everything, moved to Maine. My property trashed; spent 2 years repairing that damage.

Got my 1st new job in '05. For $10/hour. 80% or so cut in pay. They phone harrassed me at home, literally poisoned me (contaminated well...they were upstairs drinking poland springs water while I was downstairs puking), and then final straw came to my home and assaulted my animals, so I quit in '07.

Went back to school. Was going to sell my house in '07 to pay for it, but I stooopidly listend the the advisor when she dumped emotional manipulation on me, "DOOOON'T sell your HOME. Just take out a student loan!" And lied, lied, lied to me about a math placement exam their facility offered that had no published information. Long story short, she turned what should have been a intense 2-year program that I expected to finish in 3 years tops for cash and been able to move to where I was hired, into a 4 dragged-out years with $30K+ in student loans...and the local job market in the field started drying up last year.

Got a job last year at $11.50/hour, following a couple desperate weeks working at Subway for a couple cents over minimum. Had to quit the now $15.00/hour 2 weeks ago because the schedule wouldn't work with this semester and the courses are the most intense. I can't afford to fail out. I can't pay off the student loans at $15.00/hour if I quit school. So now I just buy one year at a time with student loans while I try to sell my house into a nonmarket at a huge loss.

That's what I get for thinking I could re-tool my way out of this economic catastrophe with hard work and determination.

[Le Taz Hot]

28. +1

Raises hand.

[Buns_of_Fire]

30. At 59 3/4, I'm sweating out the next 850 or so days until S/S kicks in...

...if I don't kick the bucket first for lack of any healthcare, of course. Not to mention TEOTWAWKI in 801 days -- about 50 days before my 62nd birthday -- which I would consider the ultimate cosmic joke on me.

Hell, I haven't had a real job in the last ten years or so, when I was working on Y2K remediation as a consultant/contractor/slightly-less-than-human sub-employee. I, like so many others, got a handshake, a pat on the back, a "thank you," and an invitation to hit the road, Jack, and don't come back no more, no more, no more, no more. And my name isn't even Jack.

So, I'm pretty-much screwed. But at least I can see a dim light at the end of the tunnel -- the people just slightly younger than me, or even considerably younger than me, are the ones who are REALLY screwed.

[L0oniX]

32. I hear that ...58 3/4 here and counting the days to 62. I got a feeling...

everyone is going to retire at 62 just to be able to get some of what we have paid into.

[Mimosa]

34. If you wait longer they can change the rules while you're waiting? n/t