By: Daniel Nardini
Having been on the unemployment rolls myself, I know how the U.S. Labor Bureau can and does manipulate the unemployment statistics. They report the unemployment by those who are still collecting unemployment compensation and are still actively looking for work. But what about those who cannot get onto the unemployment rolls or who have been so discouraged that they have stopped looking? In truth, if we took those workers into account the unemployment picture would be almost twice as bad.
This is what many politicians in Washington, D.C. do not want—an even darker picture of a serious social problem. If it looked that much worse “officially” then millions of voters would put far more pressure on their house representatives of senators to do something about it. But we must remember that those who are unemployed but “not looking for work” because they are off the unemployment rolls are still unemployed and in desperate need of work.
When all is said and done these people ARE still people. They have problems, they need to feed their families, they need to pay utilities, and they need work so that they can have experience in making a living. The discouraged are a whole range of people—from older workers who lost their jobs to young college graduates looking for work for the first time—they suffer from a wide variety of psychological problems that come from being discouraged and unable to find a job for a long time.
These problems include depression, loss of valuable technical and communications skills, social isolation, and sometimes uncontrollable anger and frustration. It can affect their families, and worse it can affect their ability to find work. The longer a person is unemployed the worse these symptoms can get. The cost to society can also be staggering. This segment of workers risk serious health problems, broken marriages and families, committing serious crimes, and even suicide. One can hardly imagine the devastation that the families of discouraged workers are put through with a chronic long-term member having no work or anything to do. Also imagine what this costs society.
It is high time that the politicians stop excluding those who have been uncounted in our official unemployment records. We as a nation should count them and find a way to count them. More than that, we should not treat them as throw away workers. Every worker in America deserves a better chance at life and being granted some form of human dignity.
The Throw Away Workers
By: Daniel Nardini
This is what many politicians in Washington, D.C. do not want—an even darker picture of a serious social problem. If it looked that much worse “officially” then millions of voters would put far more pressure on their house representatives of senators to do something about it. But we must remember that those who are unemployed but “not looking for work” because they are off the unemployment rolls are still unemployed and in desperate need of work.
When all is said and done these people ARE still people. They have problems, they need to feed their families, they need to pay utilities, and they need work so that they can have experience in making a living. The discouraged are a whole range of people—from older workers who lost their jobs to young college graduates looking for work for the first time—they suffer from a wide variety of psychological problems that come from being discouraged and unable to find a job for a long time.
These problems include depression, loss of valuable technical and communications skills, social isolation, and sometimes uncontrollable anger and frustration. It can affect their families, and worse it can affect their ability to find work. The longer a person is unemployed the worse these symptoms can get. The cost to society can also be staggering. This segment of workers risk serious health problems, broken marriages and families, committing serious crimes, and even suicide. One can hardly imagine the devastation that the families of discouraged workers are put through with a chronic long-term member having no work or anything to do. Also imagine what this costs society.
It is high time that the politicians stop excluding those who have been uncounted in our official unemployment records. We as a nation should count them and find a way to count them. More than that, we should not treat them as throw away workers. Every worker in America deserves a better chance at life and being granted some form of human dignity.