I just don’t understand why the Democrats don’t get it:
Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.
After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs fretted about how long it would take to return to the work force and worried that they might never recover their former incomes. But today, because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes.
For Ms. Reid, it has been four years of hunting — without a single job offer. She buzzes energetically as she describes the countless applications she has lobbed through the Internet, as well as the online courses she is taking to burnish her software skills.
Still, when she is pressed, her can-do spirit falters.
“There are these fears in the background, and they are suppressed,” said Ms. Reid, who is now selling some of her jewelry and clothes online and is late on some credit card payments. “I have had nightmares about becoming a bag lady,” she said. “It could happen to anyone. So many people are so close to it, and they don’t even realize it.”
Being unemployed at any age can be crushing. But older workers suspect their résumés often get shoved aside in favor of those from younger workers. Others discover that their job-seeking skills — as well as some technical skills sought by employers — are rusty after years of working for the same company.
Many had in fact anticipated working past conventional retirement ages to gird themselves financially for longer life spans, expensive health care and reduced pension guarantees.The most recent recession has increased the need to extend working life. Home values, often a family’s most important asset, have been battered. Stock portfolios are only now starting to recover. According to a Gallup poll in April, more than a third of people not yet retired plan to work beyond age 65, compared with just 12 percent in 1995.
Older workers who lose their jobs could pose a policy problem if they lose their ability to be self-sufficient. “That’s what we should be worrying about,” said Carl E. Van Horn, professor of public policy and director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, “what it means to this class of the new unemployables, people who have been cast adrift at a very vulnerable part of their career and their life.”
Yeah, no shit. Really?
I’m already seeing this in Philadelphia: the past couple of times I’ve been in Center City, i’ve seen several older women (late 40s-early 60s), clearly homeless with that “how the fuck did this happen” look in their eyes. I’m not talking about the obvious drug addicts,insane people, and alcoholics: I’m talking about women who look like they’re dressed for work, carrying a backpack (or in some cases several backpacks, plastic bags, etc).
You could see this coming in the early 1990s, when george Bush senior and Bill Clinton agreed that in the economy of the future, the name of the game isn’t job security, it’s employability, and that people should expect to have several jobs over the course of their lifetime, not a long stable career. It hasn’t worked out: it’s one of the reasons I hate Bill Clinton.
It’s not that the Dems don’t get it, it’s that they just no longer care. It’s obvious that Obama just isn’t “into” average working class and poor Americans. And neither are far too many dems in congress. This country is going to hell and the uber-rich and their bought and paid for politicians of both parties are the ones driving the train.