Unemployment: Today's Rant

Maybe I hate politics and people's stupid generalized comments because it makes me ANGRY. Here's my MSN rant today:

I assume you're not unemployed. Or haven't been for 2 years. One of the biggest life lessons I've had is being judgmental about people & finding myself in their position and gleaning deep understanding. Here's our story (below). My husband is still going out on repeated interviews. The last few last week is for a job 90 minutes away, w/ferry ride. He'll never be home. Why? So he can "get off his butt" and be EMPLOYED. Millions of people out of work - MILLIONS. And no jobs. NO jobs. We are talking people educated & experienced who can't meet a mortgage or provide for families working at McDonalds. The industries they've given their lives to have crashed. And we've cut cut cut everything, cell phones, life insurance, renters insurance, drained savings, 401K's, talked w/our kids, taken them outside in sub freezing weather to give perspective to what people w/o homes are living in - making us grateful for what we do have as we reach a future of 1 income to provide. This is what we do while our government, our banks, those in power play stupid games with each other, pad their own pockets while we, the people that carry the burden, figure out how to get through the winter.

So please be careful about your generalization comments about the unemployed when you're not living the realities of that life.

http://www.unemploymentextensions.org/family-of-7-facing-change/82804/

Oh yes and I should add that my husband took a part time seasonal job through a local temp agency. The job is either freezing to death or being dumped on by this weekend rain, while he stands outside monitoring a local mall parking lot for 8+ hours. He was a Corporate Director before. He joined thousands of other people @ the UPS interview system, to be told if he agreed to the min wage grunt labor job AND he were to not finish that during the holiday season, as in take a full time, permanent, well paying with benefits for his family career position, should it be offered, he would be blacklisted & unable to ever work for them again. This is what the unemployed are faced with while trying to keep their homes & families together. Working the system? I think the system is working us.

Another frightening realistic perspective from the front. My husband showed me Sundays employment ad, which in the Times used to be a HUGE section of the metropolitan paper. He held it up, 4 pages. 1 sheet, printed on 4 sides. The actual classified? First sheet only 1/2 page long, pointed to the next "full" page (narrower than normal), turned the page over. One more. Fear constricted because it was an eye opener of reality. Those of you that think unemployment should just end - unemployment HAS ended. And where are those people going? The State for food assistance, health insurance coverage, TANF - it's still being paid for. While the State sinks 90 million into a State prison, only to close it down for budget cuts 10 years later.

Where's the problem?