Good news and bad on unemployment front in U.S.

By Kathleen Kenna and Hadi Dadashian

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, it was the worst of years, it was a better year.

It was the worst year, because we’re both still unemployed, despite hundreds of job applications, job fairs, informational interviews and more.

It was a better year, because we resumed full-time job searches after growing our own company, Ocean’s Edge Media.

Good news: Our small business made more money in 2012 than in 2011.

Bad news: Our revenue still puts us below the poverty line — even before expenses.

Best news: We landed our first cover story for a Canadian magazine, and Kathleen landed her first major magazine story (Condé Nast). Our newspaper and online assignments ranged from mental health research to travel stories in California, Arizona, both Washingtons, and Canada.

Our public speaking and photography gigs increased.

It was a better year for three reasons:

1.  We expanded our reach with writing and photojournalism, tapping new markets and making a lot of new contacts. Already, our advance assignments portend a better financial year in 2013.

2.  We cut costs by moving to a smaller city.

3.  Kathleen finished her training as a CTP (Certified Trauma Professional) and became a U.S. citizen.

The latter is key, because she began to get interviews from dozens of job applications after her citizenship ceremony. In the previous 18 months as a Green Card holder, Kathleen had only a couple of interviews in her rehabilitation counseling field, despite more than 200 applications.

Investment in lawyers, paper work, etc. for Green Card and citizenship: About $7,000.

How we know the economy is really recovering

We both had more serious job interviews in the past four months than we’ve had during job searches in the past two years.

Kathleen was so excited after an Oregon state interview for vocational rehabilitation counselor, she posted at living in gratitude that it was “the best job interview in my life.”

Hadi is encouraged that there appears to be more growth in his field, optical, possibly because Americans are feeling confident enough to spend money on their health and eye care again.

(While some analysts were heartened by a dip in consumer spending on health care during the recession, we suggest it’s because people who are unemployed stop spending money on doctors, medical tests, dentists, and filling optical and other prescriptions because they’ve lost insurance. Other essentials — like food and shelter — claim any household funds before health care. It’s astonishing that 47 million Americans survive on Food Stamps, a U.S. record.)

The White House soothes some Americans with the news that the economy is recovering, and our success in landing more interviews confirms that it’s improving.

But it’s such a slow improvement that we believe the U.S. is still in a recession — a psychological recession. GDP growth of 2-3% makes us, as President Barack Obama likes to say, “cautiously optimistic.”

At job fairs this fall, we spoke to other job seekers in our age group (40s, 50s), and realized that long-term unemployment is, sadly, far too common still for people who have worked decades without ever being jobless. (In Hadi’s case, that’s working decades without any sick days or “personal time” off!)

So we’re encouraged that the national unemployment rate has dropped to 7.9% after starting 2012 at 8.3%. As we’ve written many times before, however, those stats don’t mean much to people who haven’t collected unemployment benefits and aren’t on national rolls.

Those stats don’t reflect so-called “discouraged workers”, who aren’t conducting full-time job searches either. Washington defines discouraged workers as people who have stopped looking for work. Since the Labor Department also defines discouraged workers as people who haven’t looked for work in four weeks, we don’t fit that official definition either.

Judging from the comments of other job fair participants, we’re all discouraged — no one is filing job applications full-time when they land freelance work (like us) or temporary, under-the-table work (like many engineers, carpenters and others finding sporadic work as housing starts improve). Even 23 million unemployed Americans have to pay their bills somehow.

Unemployment has decreased to 8.4% in our state of Oregon, so we’re at #40 in the U.S. All the new jobs are in the midwest, from the Dakotas to Iowa and Wyoming. North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, at 3.1%, followed by Nebraska at 3.7%.

Worst unemployment? Nevada still leads the country at 10.8%, followed by Rhode Island at 10.4%, California, 9.8%, and New Jersey, 9.6%. Our state, Oregon, is ranked #40 out of 51, with an official jobless rate of 8.4%.

Corporate cash stockpiles at $5 trillion

Given the severity of this country’s continuing high joblessness (it was only 2008 when the U.S. rate was 5%), we had hoped the November election would help calm markets and spur corporations to start creating jobs with their estimated $5 trillion in cash stockpiles.

But “fiscal cliff” negotiations have agitated markets and affected consumer and business confidence. At Hire Your Neighbor, we want to be certain that unemployment benefit extensions are approved for those who need them most.

We’re optimistic that 2013 will be a better year for us and other under/unemployed workers seeking real jobs. We’re not so optimistic about Washington overcoming its partisan divisions to tackle the real issues affecting job growth in this country: deficit reduction, government spending, and significant tax reform.

We are certain that the next debate, about the U.S. debt ceiling, will do little to calm fears of Americans, employed or not.

NEXT: The good news about full-time work after 3 years of unemployment

‘It seems we’ve decided a middle class is a luxury we can’t afford’: Unemployed and skeptical about retirement

Jim Berrie took a buyout from his newspaper in 2008, discovering the U.S. had changed even more dramatically than he had imagined:  Retirement is stretching out of reach.

“Even after the stock market crash, I fully expected I would get another job right away,” he says from his New Jersey home.

It wasn’t a voluntary buyout, but at least Berrie kept benefits and a small pension, after almost 20 years as a copy editor-paginator.

“They kind of had the gun to our heads,” he recalls.  “They said if we stayed, we could get re-assigned, as security guards at a warehouse. Or the paper would be sold and the new buyer would fire everyone and we would have to re-apply for our jobs, at lower salaries.”

Berrie wasn’t unemployed long before he was invited to return part-time. His $1,700 weekly salary was cut by two-thirds, and the only shift offered was at night, adding a 70-mile commute that was “rough”, partly because the extra miles meant a monthly surcharge on his leased car.

It’s ironic that the newspaper section Berrie was helping produce was called Good Times.

Soon, he was promoted to arts and entertainment editor, doing all the editing, layouts and pagination for two sections, working with five freelance writers.

“I was making a fraction of the money I used to make, but then they set me up so I could work at home, and only commute one day a week. I like what I’m doing, and the hours are more flexible.”

The financial hardship, however, was tough to accept.

Berrie’s wife, a speech pathologist, was working from contract to contract, as social services were slashed. She often went without income for weeks.  Then their son graduated from college and the family had to start paying back his loans.

“It was tough,” Berrie acknowledges. “There have been times ….” His voice trails off.

“Times when we fell behind on the mortgage a month or so,” he adds, admitting the three-career family didn’t expect that. “We’re caught up now.”

At 60, Berrie is scrambling to continue applying for jobs in public relations and advertising, “just trying to get my foot in the door.” But the skills of a copy editor — “people who know language” — are diminished “when there are no standards on the Internet.”

Berrie boosts his income by proofreading and copy editing at a community newspaper one day a week, and proctoring tests for the Princeton Review.

Baby Boomer nostalgia:  ‘America’s most prosperous time’

“It’s certainly scary.  There’s a kind of disconnect in the U.S. now,” he says. “The economy doesn’t seem to be rebounding the way it should, and a lot of people are losing their homes and jobs. I’m a Baby Boomer and I grew up in America’s most prosperous time. It doesn’t look like it will ever be that way again.

“It seems we’ve decided a middle class is a luxury we can’t afford.”

Berrie, 60, figured he would be retiring at 65, and now admits he can’t plan for retirement, financially or psychologically.

“We spent all our 401Ks keeping up the mortgage,” he says. “I might be desperate enough to start collecting Social Security at 62” if family income doesn’t improve.

“I fully expected I would be at (my paper) until I retired, so we feel very threatened,” Berrie says. “That stock market crash in ’08 really killed.”

Still, he’s boosted his pessimism with exercise, losing 60 pounds with the help of a personal trainer.  Berrie was so successful in maintaining a strong workout routine, that he aims to become a certified personal trainer too.

After interviewing a contestant from his town who appeared on NBC’s The Biggest Loser, Berrie is keen to turn private weight loss success into financial gain.

It’s not about us and them, it’s about sharing — just ask Mark Zuckerberg

By Hoover Wind, Kathleen Kenna and Hadi Dadashian

It’s not about us and them.

As much as we honor the peaceful intentions of the Occupy movement, it’s not just a simple formula of 1% versus 99%.

It’s about all Americans, as Sarah Palin reminded us at the CPAC convention this weekend.

Let’s look at Mark Zuckerberg, sometimes reviled, sometimes beloved founder of Facebook.

It sounds outrageous that the social networking giant could raise $5 billion in its public stock offering.

We want all American companies to raise that kind of cash in their IPOs.

We want all American companies, all Americans — from the wealthiest to the lowest-income  — to share.

Zuckerberg, hopefully, is about to show us how this is possible.

Say Facebook raises $5 billion.

This means as much as $1 billion for the rest of California.

How? That five-letter word in the current election campaign: T-A-X-E-S.

The non-partisan legislative analyst’s office in California estimates this single IPO — the largest ever for an Internet-based firm — could bring California millions, and perhaps even $1 billion, in taxes.

This has so excited California’s governor, the sometimes reviled, sometimes beloved Jerry Brown, that his staff has offered to mow Zuckerberg’s lawn in exchange.

“If it is as big as it is being billed, then on behalf of a grateful state, I will go to Mark Zuckerberg’s house and either wash his windows or mow his lawn,” says H.D. Palmer, Brown’s finance spokesman.

This is the great part:  The non-partisan legislative analyst’s office and the Democrat governor’s office have both put one of California’s richest entrepreneurs on notice.

Pundits are crowing that Zuckerberg will pay the most taxes of any American in history.  This is good news, no matter where you stand on tax reform, tax breaks for the rich, or tax hikes.

California is broke.  With a deficit of more than $9 billion, its schools are falling apart, and its streets and highways are filling with garbage.  Social services — for veterans, elders, people with disabilities, children and low-income families — have been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

Slashbacks across all levels of government have hit all public services, from policing to economic development, like a tsunami.

To international visitors, it appears that California’s homeless population is growing, in major cities and small towns.

Politicians will fall all over themselves with a windfall like this. Watch for national politicians to argue about how Zuckerberg’s tax contributions should be spent — more prisons/less prisons; more affordable housing/more campaign contributions.

We’ll be watching Zuckerberg and his Facebook workers, many of whom are counting on becoming millionaires as a result of this IPO.

Will they park their new profits outside the country to avoid taxes?

Or will they share, by paying full taxes — however that is defined — to help California’s most vulnerable?

Will they, as Republican minority leaders in California insist, use this newfound tax wealth to “protect our public school students … and pay down the state’s debt service.”

You know — the debt that everyone shared in accumulating during the so-called “good years”?

Layoffs, recession show ‘we’re living in a new world’

Dan Witter was confident a Bachelor’s degree would help him pursue a career.

Dan Witter

A survivor of layoffs and a recession that has crushed career hopes, the 43-year-old from Bellingham, WA, says his experiences have taught him an unsettling lesson: “I’m not convinced things will go back to the way they used to be.”

That means the days when a solid resume, good references and a B.A. meant something better than minimum wage.

Witter, working two jobs for more than 45 hours a week, just filed his taxes and concludes, “I didn’t clear $16,000.”

He says this with some amazement, as if he still can’t believe he’s back to retail after two years of unemployment, following a layoff.

“I’m disappointed that things aren’t working out the way they should,” he says. “I realize I’m living in a different world. It’s so sad to see this happen to our country.”

Witter says it’s not enough to be committed to a job, and work hard to get ahead.

“I work hard, I take pride in my work, I’m a detail-oriented person,” he says. “That doesn’t mean anything anymore. Everyone puts that on their resume.”

After applying for 300 jobs in the past two years, Witter was relieved to get a part-time job as custodian at his church, first at five hours weekly, then 10.  That was followed by a full-time job as produce assistant in a new department at Target.

“At least I have medical,” he says. “Between two jobs, I can’t afford $700-a-month rent. I pay room and board to my parents, but I have this guilt trip — I’m supposed to be out on my own. I’m supposed to be supporting myself. I should be independent, yet here I am.”

He’s quiet for a moment and adds, “There are so many people worse off than me, who have lost everything.”

Witter joined the Occupy protests in Bellingham, and removed his savings from the Bank of America to protest the bank’s role in the recession.

“We hear about all these bailouts of Wall Street … so I stood outside the Bank of America (in Bellingham), to say, ‘you got bailouts and I lost my job’,” he recalls.

“A lot of the time I was out of work, I was angry. I just didn’t show it. I was really, really angry — I had nowhere to put the blame.”

When Witter was unemployed and lost his health insurance, he got injured and was advised to get surgery at a cost of almost $20,000.

“I was livid,” he says. “I was scared.  “That would have wiped out all my savings.”

Witter sought opinions from two more doctors, who advised against surgery, so he still tries to add to his savings.

“There are so few making so much money in our country, and so many suffering,” he continues.

“It leaves you with a sense of helplessness. I don’t feel like I have a whole lot of power. There’s a certain acceptance of things — but I’m not giving up.”

Witter is writing a book about his church, Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship, as a way of channeling his writing skills.

“Writing gives me a sense of contentment,” he explains. “This a real, printed book — I can’t wait to get it in my hands.”

Witter leaves with a Mark Twain quotation he finds inspiring: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Second of two parts

Long-term unemployment ‘changed my whole worldview’

Dan Witter has the kind of passion that spurred him to take 2,000 photos of a construction project and produce a self-published book.

The project was an addition to his church, Bellingham Unitarian, in Washington state.

Dan Witter

Witter, a former journalist, wanted to capture history for the congregation of 300, so embarked on what he calls “my honeymoon book.”

The title, Building A New Hope, could be a sub-title for Witter’s own life.

At 43, Witter says he didn’t imagine he would be living with his parents again, after long-term unemployment.

Witter got a BA in journalism, worked as a reporter in California for almost eight years, then returned to Washington “burnt out” in 2007.

“I moved back with my parents, figuring I would stay a month or two, and find work,” he recalls.

When the job search took longer than expected, he got a retail job at Target and continued searching.

By fall, 2008, he landed a job that paid twice as much as retail, at Cargill Animal Nutrition, a feed mill near Anacortes, Washington. Witter became a production technician, stocking and sealing animal feed in bags on a production line.

“I asked myself, ‘Do you really want to get into this? Are you sure you want to do this?’ ” he says. “It was the worst job I ever had.”

Long hours, difficult working conditions and a tough work culture finally led to a layoff, and Witter acknowledges, “I was the wrong match for the job.”

Witter began another full-time job search, confident it wouldn’t take long.

“At first, I was happy because I knew that wasn’t the right job for me,” he says. “But it was getting tougher. Days turned into weeks turned into months — I told myself, ‘I won’t go six months’ (before finding work), but then a year goes by.

“I was sending out resumes and applications all the time and I was getting only rejection letters, most of the time, no response. It was like these resumes and applications were just going into a void, some black hole.”

Employers complained they were getting 200 to 300 applications for a single position, and soon, Witter started hearing about other recession victims.

“I knew other people were losing jobs and they were worse off than me because they were losing their homes — at least I had a place to stay,” he says.

As the recession deepened, so did Witter’s depression.

“I was getting depressed because I just knew it wasn’t getting better. It changed my whole worldview,” Witter says. “I didn’t know if I would ever find a job again. It just seemed so impossible and so time-consuming, so frustrating. I knew, at the back of my mind, it was useless.”

Witter said he applied faithfully for jobs while collecting unemployment insurance, starting with media-related positions, then government jobs, then back to retail.

“I did what I was supposed to do,” applying regularly for jobs while getting UI, he says. “I didn’t lie. I would apply to Costco nine times and never get a response.”

Considering Target his default, Witter finally re-applied and learned there were no positions. At least that employer offered something few bothered — a response to his application.

College degree ‘just a useless piece of paper’

After applying for 300 jobs, Witter says he investigated education options that might help.

“I couldn’t see what would lead to work in this economy,” he says. “It seemed a college degree was just a useless piece of paper.”

Witter’s church offered him a custodial job at five hours a week, then 10 hours, helping lift his confidence.

When construction began on an addition for the church, Witter says he just started shooting pictures of the work, becoming engrossed in the process.

“It was a labor of love,” Witter says, explaining that it was a volunteer project he undertook to show appreciation to the congregation.

“It was a pivotal moment,” he concludes. “It was a great accomplishment — I didn’t know I could do a book.”

Witter sold copies to church members at print-on-demand cost, estimating he earned about $40.

That seemingly minor success was followed by a phone call from Target.  The retail giant was opening new produce departments, and offered Witter a full-time job, based on his previous excellent performance.

“I finally got a job,” Witter says. “I was just elated.”

TOMORROW:  Post-recession worldview

 

 

No dinner with the Obamas, but letter from the president helps

 

We wanted dinner with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Wanted to share our experiences talking to unemployed people across the U.S., and ask, Where are the jobs?

No White House dinner for Hire Your Neighbor, but we did get this form letter from the president:

Dear Friend: Thank you for your kind note.  Your thoughtful words join a chorus of millions of Americans who are eager to lead our Nation towards a brighter tomorrow. Each day, I am inspired by the encouraging messages of hope and determination I have received from people across the country.  With the magnitude of challenges we face, we will only overcome them if our imagination is joined to common purpose. The future we leave to our children and grandchildren will be determined by our willingness to shoulder each other’s burdens, take great risks, and move forward as one people and one Nation.  With your help, we will build on what we have already achieved and lay a new foundation for real and lasting progress. Sincerely, Barack Obama

Ask a job counselor: Is volunteer work good or bad for your resume?

By Kathleen Kenna

I have a one-word solution for everything:  Volunteer.

Fed up with the state of schools in your neighborbood?  Volunteer to help students learn to read, write, find their way.  If you really want to make a commitment that helps, become a Big Sister/Brother.

Ticked at government?  Volunteer for some community service that taxes no longer cover but people really need.

Does your community need a clean-up?  Do it, and others will join you, voluntarily.  It just takes one to start.

I’ve volunteered most of my life because that’s the way I was raised:  Give back.

My first volunteer job, at 15, was writing for a local newspaper.  It was so much fun, and so well-read (we lived in a small farming community), my weekly column was soon picked up by another paper.

Volunteering then taught me critical lessons I needed for the rest of life:  How to meet a deadline. How to show up on time.

Forget the fancy stuff, like creative ideas — that first volunteer job taught me the most basic rule of working:  How to be dependable.

I never forgot my editor storming down to the track where I was training for an 800-metre race.  He was steamed because I had missed my first deadline.  (I was too busy training for a track meet and, as a self-absorbed teen, didn’t bother to call him).

Too bad.  He had a space to fill.  That space had my name on it.  And I wrote my piece, post-deadline, to fulfil my obligation.

Never missed another deadline.

As a rehabilitation counselor, working with people with disabilities, I always recommended volunteer work for job-seekers.  As a job counselor, working with people with all kinds of disadvantages, I always suggested volunteer work as a way of building a resume.

My advice?  Do whatever you are able, as much as you can, wherever you can.  I guarantee you’ll take away more than you give:

1.  You’ll learn new skills.

2.  You’ll meet new people.  This is good for socializing — especially if unemployment is making you depressed — and it’s good for networking.

3.  You’ll explore new work environments, whether it’s at a non-profit or office or government.

4.  You’ll boost “soft skills”, such as getting along with others.  Hopefully, you’ll improve executive skills, such as problem-solving, perhaps in a crisis.

5.  And you’ll fill unemployed time with productive work.  You’ll feel more useful; you will be more useful, to many others (likely more than at a paid job too).

This is great for some resumes.  Do a good job as a volunteer, and you’ll get good references.

Do a great job, and it might lead to a paid position.  My two-year newspaper volunteering helped land my first salaried job, at 17, at a larger paper.  That was the modest start of a successful career in journalism.

My second volunteer job was as a nurses’ aide at a seniors’ home, during my first year of university. I learned two things:  (a) Many elders are wonderful, warm people with the greatest stories to tell; and (b) Many old people scare me. (I was 18.)

After university, I volunteered as a writing tutor, “big sister”, soup kitchen worker, and a food bank runner.

These last two jobs were something I did when I was earning my highest salary. I worked so many hours at my salaried job –and exercised so much to stay fit to work so many hours — that I figured volunteer work outside my comfort zone would be a much-needed diversion.

I wanted to give back more when I was getting so much. I wanted to do something physical (hefting food boxes, for example) that would help my community.

I learned more about other people, working in a soup kitchen and a food bank, than I ever did at my high-pressure, high-paid job.

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of volunteer work, in several countries, so I created a separate, volunteer work resume. I put one discreet line at the end of my “awards, achievements” section, indicating this other resume was available.

No one has ever asked to see it.  No interviewer has ever asked about the lifetime achievement award I received from a national non-profit.

And no one, at a non-profit, or government, or business, has ever asked me about the value of volunteering.

The only ones who have asked?  Workers who need jobs.

Open letter from a jobless job counselor to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder

Dear Governor Snyder:

Let’s cut the niceties and be straight:  Cutting unemployment insurance (UI) won’t create jobs.

It will create more misery.  It will lead to more poverty, more hunger, homelessness, and worse.

I understand your state is suffering, with official unemployment at 10.6%, compared to the national rate of 8.6%.

You and I both know those numbers are inaccurate:  The jobless rate in Michigan, like the national rate, is likely double that, since “official” numbers only tally those collecting UI.  They don’t include so-called “discouraged” workers, and the long-term unemployed.

On the other side of the country, I can’t pretend to know how to convince Michigan employers to create jobs when they’ve already had tax cuts, and you’re about to slash billions more from their taxes.

But crushing the vulnerable isn’t the answer, governor;  it’s never the answer.

Tax cuts for U.S. employers and the wealthy in the past decade haven’t helped the country much.  If they did, where are the jobs?

Governor, I worked as a job counselor for five years in two states — including two years in a city with the highest unemployment in the U.S. — so I know a little about this misery.

Americans are begging for work.  Offer many job seekers $10-an-hour jobs, and they’ll take them, with gratitude, no matter how much abuse they must endure to keep it.  (And from what I saw, the lower the wage, the more abuse.)

You intend to force almost a half-million job seekers off UI and into $10-an-hour jobs.

Really?

Does the $50,000-a-year social worker benefit society by taking a job away from a lower-wage worker?

Where do those workers go if employers decide they’re easily replaced by jobless workers with degrees?

Did you consider the single-parent nurse who won’t have time to seek work in her career or afford child care at $10-an-hour if she’s forced to work outside her helping profession?  Who does that help?  Who gets hurt?

Governor, when you announced these cuts last March, you said, “Let’s start the job creation process.”

What have you and Michigan’s politicians, employers and big thinkers been doing since then?

You said, then: “I wanted to make sure we could do whatever to help these people to continue on a path until they can find a job.”

Sounded more like you were blaming the jobless for being out of work:  “Let’s focus on bringing our unemployment rate down so we don’t have people on unemployment that’s going on for 20 to 26 weeks or 99 weeks.”

The U.S. Labor Dept. reports that average unemployment for U.S. workers collecting UI is more than 40 weeks.  It’s getting worse, despite tax cuts and bailouts and other aid to employers and financial institutions — that’s why Washington grudgingly agreed to those 99-week extensions.  Income disparity in this country grows wider too, amid more calls for more tax cuts and record profits in Corporate America.

Oh, and average unemployment for U.S. workers not collecting UI?  Estimates vary, but it’s edging up to two years.

You said this week that Michigan’s UI slashbacks (to a max of 20 weeks) are designed to “encourage people to work.  It’s not to have them go backward.”

That’s encouraging.  You must be certain there are plenty of $10/hr jobs, available now, for every jobless person in Michigan.  You sound certain that employers will use their tax breaks to create so many new jobs that Michigan will no longer have one of the highest unemployment rates in the U.S.

Please post that jobs list asap.

“It’s easiest to find a job when you’ve gotten a job,” you said this week.

Again, really?

Spend some real time with job seekers, trainers, counselors and others at Michigan’s job offices.  Spend some real time with long-term unemployed workers.  Listen to them with the same time and attention span you gave the state’s big employers.

There are other solutions, Gov. Snyder.  It’s going to take some hard work and big thinking to get there — not little jobs and big tax cuts.

And please, let the rest of us know how that goes.

Respectfully, Kathleen Kenna

Related story:  Snyder among least popular governors in U.S. 

Call Congress. Call President Obama. Urge them to extend unemployment benefits

By Kathleen Kenna, Hadi Dadashian and Hoover Wind

We’re ashamed and appalled that members of Congress are going home to holiday feasts and celebrations and denying the rights of people without jobs.

We’re ashamed that unemployment benefits are again being used as a pawn in Washington’s chess game. Hurting the vulnerable is always the path Congress takes when it refuses to do the work that we, the people, expect.

It’s estimated 1.8 million workers will lose their unemployment benefits within weeks, and another 6 million — equal to the entire population of Missouri — face losing this safety net next year.

Yet unemployment benefits are so critical in this lame economy that 18 million Americans have relied on them since the 2008 recession.

As workers who have subsidized these benefits in good faith, we demand that Congress use our contributions for the purpose they were intended:  Helping people who are unemployed survive while seeking work.

American employers pay into the system believing it will be a safety net if they suffer layoffs, shutdowns, terminations or downsizing.  Workers indirectly pay for this protection too.

(Check the House of Representatives website for FAQ about how unemployment insurance is funded in the U.S.)

The economy is so rough on so many — with and without jobs — that the jobless are demonized for using unemployment benefits to support their families when they’re forced out of work.

We hear about new job losses every day, from police on the east coast to 30-year IBM workers on the west coast.  The national unemployment rate, officially at 8.6%, is far higher than Congress admits, because so few jobless people are actually collecting or seeking unemployment benefits.

There are an estimated 25 million people out of work in this, the richest nation on earth.  That’s equal to the population of Texas.

Worse, unemployment is lasting longer:  New stats show the average duration of U.S. unemployment is 41 weeks.  Most who lose their jobs involuntarily are out of work for months. The U.S. Bureau of Labor reports that 59% of jobless people in America are unemployed for 15 weeks or more.

Despite signs of improvement — house construction is up almost 10% — economic growth still lags, and jobs are not being created at a pace that helps most unemployed Americans.

The Salvation Army, food banks, faith groups and other selfless Americans across this country report that demand for the basics of life — food, warm clothes — has soared since the recession hit.  Need has not diminished in this so-called jobless recovery.

And shelter, in the worst foreclosure crisis in this nation’s history, remains a worry for millions.

To reduce unemployment benefits at a time of high unemployment is unconscionable.

It’s immoral.

People of all faiths are pressuring Congress to do the right thing.

Interfaith Worker Justice has held public prayer vigils in Washington, seeking help for the jobless. Echoing Occupy Wall St., they’re asking the 1% to share more of America’s wealth with the 99%.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Congress this week urging politicians to extend unemployment insurance.

“When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families,” wrote Bishop Stephen Blaire. “Therefore, I strongly urge you and your colleagues to find effective ways to assure continuing Unemployment Insurance and Emergency Unemployment Compensation to protect jobless workers and their families.”

Rev. Blaire’s letter to Congress cites Pope John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical: “The obligation to provide unemployment benefits … the duty to make suitable grants indispensable for the subsistence of unemployed workers and their families, is a duty springing from the fundamental principle of … the right to life and subsistence.”

The National Employment Law Project is among a growing chorus demanding Congress extend unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts to help workers.

Starting today, Hire Your Neighbor is calling every member of our congressional delegations to urge them to stand up for people who are unemployed.

Then we’ll contact every Senator and every member of the House of Representatives, regardless of party, to demand that unemployment insurance benefits be extended.

We’re contacting each to urge that payroll tax cuts — helping so many underemployed and underpaid Americans pay their bills — be extended.

With no strings attached.

We are emailing President Barack Obama to ask, politely, that he lead on both these issues, and lead the country in finding ways to create good jobs again.

Hire Your Neighbor is urging Americans to join us in this national conversation about unemployment.

Call Congress and tell politicians to get back to the work of the people.

Don’t know the number of your senators and members of the House?  Call toll-free, 888-245-3381, and people fighting for the rights of unemployed workers will connect you with the right office.

Contact the White House — use this form — and urge President Barack Obama to stand up for the rights of people without jobs.

Related stories:  “Unemployment Insurance Under the Knife” (The Nation)

“Catholic Bishops, Other Religious Groups Lobby for Unemployment Insurance Extensions” (Huffington Post)

WANTED: Unemployed writers. NEWS: We got a donation, so we can pay!

Hire Your Neighbor wants writers.

Unemployed writers.  Under-employed writers.

We just received a $1,000 donation from Canada, anonymously, so we’ll pay.

One thousand bucks.

That’s real money.  Not the 40 cents per article we see posted on so-called freelance sites.

Tell us your story about being jobless.

Write about your impressions of the historic unemployment rate in the richest nation on earth.

If you have any solutions, tell us.  Washington and Wall St. aren’t.

We’ve started a national conversation about this, and we want all unemployed people to be a part of it.

We’ve told ours.

Tell yours.

Tell Americans with jobs about their neighbors without jobs.

Help dispel the stereotypes we hear every day, from pundits, politicians, and even, sadly, our best friends.

Help convince Americans that hiring one of the 25 million jobless in this country is not only about Wall St. or the White House.

It’s about Americans hiring neighbors.  It’s about helping each other through the worst unemployment crisis of our lifetime.

Help keep the conversation going, writers!  Get Occupied!

Stop the noise that goes nowhere by becoming part of the solution.

Hire Your Neighbor will pay $25 for each 200-word article written by anyone who’s unemployed and is brave enough to share their story.

Contact us at: hireyourneighbor@gmail.com.