Unemployment hurts in many way
" Among the many things overshadowed by the war is the
substantial human toll that is quietly being taken by the
faltering U.S. economy. Putting Americans to work is not
part of the agenda of the Bush administration, and the
fallout from this lack of interest is spreading big time."
April 8, 2003
By BOB HERBERT
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
seattlepi.nwsource.com
"I've gone through a few stages of depression and
frustration," said Dina Ziskin, who is 31 and lives in
Brooklyn, N.Y. "Why is it taking me so long? I panic a lot. I
did not think it would be this difficult to find a job."
"I can't tell you the number of divorces we hear about," said
Janelle Razzino, who runs an executive search firm in
Westwood, N.J. "The job loss in these cases was probably
the final straw. Nobody needs that kind of pressure, stress,
whatever."
"It's like someone ran an electric shock through your
system," said Dr. Steve Korner, a psychologist in Cresskill,
N.J. "People are anxious, depressed, feeling unwanted,
powerless. The job market is really awful for a lot of people."
Among the many things overshadowed by the war is the
substantial human toll that is quietly being taken by the
faltering U.S. economy. Putting Americans to work is not
part of the agenda of the Bush administration, and the
fallout from this lack of interest is spreading big time.
The United States is hemorrhaging jobs. On Friday the
government reported that 108,000 more jobs were lost in
March. Some 2.4 million jobs have vanished since the
nation's payrolls peaked two years ago.
The jobless rate held steady at 5.8 percent last month, but
that is extremely deceptive. People who have become
discouraged and stopped looking for work are not counted
when the unemployment rate is calculated. This keeps the
official rate artificially low. There are 5 million people in the
discouraged category and their ranks are growing.
David Leonhardt, in an article in The Times on Saturday,
wrote:
"Last month's job losses cut across almost every sector of
the economy. Manufacturers reduced employment for the
36th consecutive month. The vast services industry, usually
a source of stability, has cut 121,000 jobs in the last six
months, with department stores, restaurants, airlines and
hotels all paring their payrolls in March. After adding jobs
through last year, local and state governments have also
begun to make cuts to close budget deficits."
There is not much of a sense anywhere that things are
about to improve. "It seems to me that the recovery's been
six months away for two years running," said John
Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray &
Christmas, the international outplacement firm. "The latest
version of that is that when the war ends the euphoria will
trigger enough optimism on the part of either consumers or
businesses to finally turn things around. I'm certainly
dubious about that."
The loss of a job is like a blow to the solar plexus of an
individual family. Grand plans give way to a state of
emergency in which it is not at all clear how the rent or the
mortgage will be paid, or how the bill collectors can be
satisfied from month to month, then week to week, and
finally day to day.
"I've got my own little Ponzi scheme going," a distraught
former executive told me last week. "When the credit card
companies pull the plug on me, I'm finished."
The executive, who asked not to be identified, said he was
depressed but could not afford to see a therapist.
John Sampson helps run a support network in northern
New Jersey for telecommunications experts who have lost
senior positions. "This is the bleakest employment picture
I've ever seen," he said. "The number of people looking for
jobs is overwhelming. We've got a whole bunch of people
now who are doing everything from selling cars to driving
limousines to working in retail."
Sampson, who is 62, said he's been out of work for more
than a year.
There doesn't seem to be much awareness in the Bush
administration of the terrible distress of the unemployed
U.S. worker. This is an ache that does not extend to the
gilded towers of the very wealthy, which is where the
administration has always focused its concern.
The White House response to the latest job loss figures is
the same response it has had all along to bad economic
news: more tax cuts are the cure.
Sampson, who described himself as coming from a
"Republican background," said he feels the U.S. worker has
been abandoned. "While I'm not a big Bill Clinton fan," he
said, "I liked what his labor secretary had to say. Robert
Reich always talked about the work force as a national
asset. It is. We should treat it that way."
Bob Herbert is a columnist with The New York Times. Copyright 2003
New York Times News Service. E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com |
