There was an article in the New York Times talking about people who have lost jobs and now are so frustrated they are not looking for work. I read the article because I was hoping there was some wisdom as to how these people were surviving without work. Did they live off savings? Are they getting unemployment? Actually the article had little answers outright as to how they are surviving. A lot of information was gleaned through passing words which, as I suspected in the back of my mind, showed some unrealistic answers to people who are really down and out.

It’s not that I don’t feel sympathy for the folks getting out of the job market, but the stories sound more like upper middle class people who really haven’t hit the depths that I’ve seen with friends, acquaintances and myself. For instance there was one person in the article who had a business, left the business to his daughter while he went to help his parents, and somehow when he went to find a job in the new state he couldn’t find anything like he was doing. The article never mentioned what happened to the business he left with his daughter. Did she run it into the ground? In the case of him finding a new job, he talked about how it was a full time job looking for a new job. He lamented that he would work eight hours a day sending out four or five resumes a day. Four or five resumes a day? And that took 8 hours a day? That isn’t looking for work. I can send out five resumes in fifteen minutes online. I can drive to stores with help wanted signs and have more resumes put out than what this guy did in 8 hours.

Another woman talked about losing her job and how tough it is to make ends meet. She was an executive jet setting all over the world. She was so busy at her job she didn’t notice her daughter had a lazy eye. She is going to keep on being a stay at home mom because she realizes her husband, also an executive, makes enough money for them to live.

All of the stories had people opting out of the work force but hardly were the people destitute and down and out. I have friends who don’t have partners to fall back on. They’re trying to make ends meet by selling prized items because they don’t have any money coming in. They’re working on getting unemployment but that still isn’t covering the bills. Last week I sent out 100 resumes online and I got 2 responses back. I got an interview with one company. If things work out that job only gives 32 hours a week and the pay is scraping by. The choice is I have to find another job to make ends meet.

With unemployment, I have to jump through a number of hoops if I hope to get it and even then it might not pay as much as the part time job. So I’m hit one way or another. The last time I was out of job it took one month to find something, and then I had a few job offers to go over before I made the final decision. That was three years ago. Now I’m sending out hundreds of resumes and I’m lucky to get a couple of responses back. That’s the reality many people are hitting now. Forget about trying to find a job in a profession you trained for, just getting a job in anything is tough. I might laugh at watching Good Times with James Evans working two or three menial jobs just to get by, but more and more that’s the life we’re living now. That’s depressing.