In an earlier post, 99er population rises dramatically by 127,000. The long-term unemployment report, I summarized how the long-term unemployment rate remains at troubling levels even as the unemployment rate continues to improve slightly, due to the participation rate being at a 27-year low. While the statistics show a deteriorating jobs picture for many long-term unemployed and especially 99ers, those particular statistics don’t present the human toll. The human toll of long-term unemployment is varied and severe and it strikes individuals, families and communities with a vengeance that few other economic disasters can match. The points that follow are not specific to the unemployed, but it’s likely that long-term unemployment has contributed to the increases.
Poverty
A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis concluded that unemployment insurance temporarily kept 3.3 million people out of poverty. Food stamp assistance kept another 2.3 million people out of poverty. On top of that, an additional 2.3 million people in prison were not counted in the poverty rate. Add up these numbers and we are looking at 60 million Americans living in poverty. Which means the government number glosses over 16.4 million Americans in poverty.
The number of people unemployed for more than 99 weeks increased 127,000 in March. Since unemployment benefits are not being extended to those out of work for more than their state maximum weeks allowed, more unemployed will fall into poverty. How many of those unemployed will enter poverty? We won’t know until poverty numbers are updated, but it’s quite possible that millions more unemployed will enter poverty. At the same time, the GOP’s 2012 budget is looking to cut taxes for the wealthy and heating assistance and other help for the poor.
The corporate media and elected officials often ignore the “real” economic numbers. Both entities tout the 8.8% unemployment rate while ignoring a 27-year low participation rate and record levels of long-term unemployment.
Food Stamps
In January 2011, SNAP/Food Stamps participation rose to a record 44,187,831 people, an increase of 105,470 individuals from December 2010, and an increase of more than 4.7 million people compared with the prior January.
The New york Times reported: About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.
Foreclosures
USA TODAY: High unemployment drove up foreclosures in 72% of 206 leading metropolitan areas last year, including many not hit as hard by the initial foreclosure waves that pounded cities in Nevada, California and Florida, market researcher RealtyTrac reports.
Healthcare
More than 50 million Americans are without health insurance and many of those uninsured are the unemployed:
The spate of layoffs during the recession catapulted 9 million more Americans -- or 57 percent of those who had had health insurance in a job that evaporated over the last two years -- into the ranks of the millions already uninsured.
In addition, 19 million people anxiously seeking private coverage over the last three years were either turned down or could not find a plan that was affordable and met their needs, the report found.
The Biennial Health Insurance Survey also found a whopping 60 percent increase in skipped care due to cost in the past decade. The survey reported that medical debt problems and out-of-pocket spending costs were on the rise as well, with 29 million Americans using up their entire life savings to pay for medical bills and millions more unable to afford food, heat and rent due to medical payments.
Of industrialized countries, only in America can you lose everything you own to medical costs. Elected representatives, concerned about campaign funds from Wall Street, bailed-out a crooked and corrupt banking sector with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money, but that same Congress allows millions of American families to go without health insurance. With underemployment remaining near 16%, millions of additional American families will lose access to affordable healthcare or lose all they own to pay for medical needs.
Depression
More than 57 percent of those surveyed who were receiving unemployment benefits responded that they were either "not very" or "not at all" satisfied with their life as a whole.
Those feelings of depression are leading more unemployed Americans to look for professional help; the American Psychological Association (APA) reports that psychologists are being called on more than ever to counsel out-of-work Americans. San Francisco psychologist and APA member Robert Chope has counseled the unemployed for more than 30 years. The longer unemployment lasts, he said, the more emotionally drained the jobless tend to become.
“The primary issue [the unemployed] are dealing is the loss of identity,” Chope told LiveScience. “There is this sense of hopelessness.”
Life Expectancy
The unemployed — especially men — have a drastically increased risk of dying early, according to new research. But jobless people can fight the statistics by avoiding bad habits.
"Our big finding is that unemployment does increase the risk of premature mortality by 63 percent," said Eran Shor, a member of the study's research team and a sociology professor at McGill University.
Suicide Hotline Calls
From July 2010: As joblessness rates rise, people are getting desperate. One of the saddest signs of the continuing recession to date, calls to suicide hotlines have risen nearly 20 percent.
From Huffington Post: As layoffs surged late in 2008, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, a group based in D.C. and Massachusetts that helps organizations develop suicide prevention programs, reviewed two decades' worth of research on the question. It found that a "strong relationship exists between unemployment, the economy, and suicide."
All facets of life are adversely affected by unemployment, especially long-term unemployment. These tragic consequences are worsening and there’s little demand for improving the situation. Media treads lightly on bad economic news, since poor economic news is bad for advertising. Elected representatives are conveniently ignoring the issue as well in the face of 2012 elections. Is the Republican majority in the House proposing any jobs programs? No. Is the Democratic controlled Senate proposing any assistance for the long-term jobless? No. Both political parties are ignoring the country’s most dire issue; joblessness.
Elected are the same politicos – from both parties - that promise change, but end up simply changing the rules to make it easier for the wealthy to reap more while the poor and middle class absorb the bulk of economic suffering. How, in good conscience, can Congress and the president seriously discuss cutting social safety net programs while at the same time cutting tax rates for the wealthy?
Politicos must believe that Americans are fools to accept a system that coddles the wealthy and connected while punishing the poor and middle class. Hopefully they are not proven right. It’s time the middle class and poor raised again their voices to be heard over the din of the moneyed special interests that currently infest the halls of Capitol Hill, or be silenced into submission. The choice is of course yours.
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