An uncertain future after jobless benefits expire
More than two years after Meyers lost his job as a Las Vegas Strip bartender and nearly eight months after he exhausted his unemployment benefits, it has come to this: a careful inventory of a life's possessions and the hopeless embrace of a future as a middle-aged homeless man.
"I can't believe this is happening to my life," Meyers, 55, said on a recent afternoon, as he surveyed the one-bedroom apartment he must soon abandon. "It's a social holocaust."
Meyers, who is single and childless, is among a growing number of men and women who no longer qualify for unemployment benefits because they have been out of work for so long.
"Exhaustees" or "99ers" — as they are sometimes called — are searching for work and help across the United States. But their situation seems particularly bleak in Nevada, where unemployment, bankruptcies and foreclosure rates are the highest in the nation and job creation is at a crawl. The "99er" moniker refers to those who've gone beyond the maximum weeks of benefits available, but many people don't qualify for the full 99-week period.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110129/ap_on_re_us/us_expired_benefits_nevada_unemployment---------------------------
Meanwhile, it is the FEDERAL RESERVE -- a private bank -- deciding our economic futures and
questions about employment!!
Evidently, just too much of a strain for our government to actually debate and discuss these
issues OPENLY and let the public see their positions on these issues?
Seems it suits our Congress, elected officials -- and the private banks -- to pass it on to
the Fed. And, of course, they've been doing this for decades!
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