For the unemployed

[Simone]

Is anyone reading this public policy forum who is unemployed and looking for work? Unemployed and trying to start a business?

If so, will economic issues be more important to you than social ones when you decide whom to vote for?
Less important? Equally important?

Will you report which party you back and why?

I am curious because I work with a segment of the population who are unemployed and underemployed. None of them has internet services. None is planning to vote.

I would like to learn more from unemployed people who are interested enough in politics to follow this forum.

[redfox]

NONE are planning to vote?!? Oh my goodness, that's tragic. Can you at least line up someone from The League of Women Voters to hold a conversation with them about voting?

[Maxamillion]

FWIW, I'm currently unemployed. I've had a business before, and while I'm not working towards starting a business at the present moment, I hope to one day again. I will be voting, and I'll be voting for Obama, due to both economic and social reasons...one of the biggest reasons is because of the Affordable Care Act, which would directly impact my ability to work for a living in the future, due to some health issues that I have. Without the ACA, it would be next to impossible for me to get insurance if I was able to return to the workforce (I'm currently on disability--thank goodness for Medicare). And without the medical care I need, I wouldn't live very long, let alone be able to work.

[Life_is_Simple]

FWIW, I'm currently unemployed. I've had a business before, and while I'm not working towards starting a business at the present moment, I hope to one day again. I will be voting, and I'll be voting for Obama, due to both economic and social reasons...one of the biggest reasons is because of the Affordable Care Act, which would directly impact my ability to work for a living in the future, due to some health issues that I have. Without the ACA, it would be next to impossible for me to get insurance if I was able to return to the workforce (I'm currently on disability--thank goodness for Medicare). And without the medical care I need, I wouldn't live very long, let alone be able to work.
I sort of know where you are coming from. The Massachusetts health care law has enabled me to be self-employed and have health insurance, which I need due to chronic illness.

Before it was enacted, I had to work at actual jobs to get health insurance, then a job would make me sick and I would have to quit it. Then I would recover a little and get another job with health insurance. Then quit that one in order to recover.

I wish upon all who need it, the ability to get health insurance without it being tied to a job. It's a really, really good thing. It allows a person to carve out the work situation that best suits them and their health.

[Simone]

Thank you, Maxamillion. Like Life-Is_Simple, I think I know where you are coming from about the Affordable Care Act. It will make it easier for many people to live to work another day.

Do you have an opinion about which candidate is more likely to be able to create jobs, given the adversarial political climate, the realities of global economics, etc.?

Redfox, the population I work with is transient, and, frankly, too preoccupied with survival to be interested in voting. We've tried.

[Maxamillion]

I think Obama would be the better candidate as far as job creation as well. He's tried to pass some bills through Congress to create jobs but the bills keep getting blocked. I know some people talk about how corporations and the people who run them are job creators, but corporations aren't there to create jobs, they're there to make money, and if it means laying off people in order to make profit, then that's what they'll do. That's the sort of background that Romney comes from. He and Ryan also want to cut funding for social programs that help the unemployed and low-wage workers.



Before it was enacted, I had to work at actual jobs to get health insurance, then a job would make me sick and I would have to quit it. Then I would recover a little and get another job with health insurance. Then quit that one in order to recover. [


I've had to do this too in the past.

[peggy]

I sort of know where you are coming from. The Massachusetts health care law has enabled me to be self-employed and have health insurance, which I need due to chronic illness.

Before it was enacted, I had to work at actual jobs to get health insurance, then a job would make me sick and I would have to quit it. Then I would recover a little and get another job with health insurance. Then quit that one in order to recover.

I wish upon all who need it, the ability to get health insurance without it being tied to a job. It's a really, really good thing. It allows a person to carve out the work situation that best suits them and their health.

This is the beauty of the affordable care act, or Obamacare for those who want to call it that. Not every self employed person want to build an empire. Not every small business wants to build itself into a huge conglomerate. Sometimes people want to just support themselves as a small business unto themselves.
I think this is what Romney and the republicans don't really understand. I don't think they understand one person, by him/herself as a complete business unit, alone. I think they can only think of business as huge, several hundred, or thousand employees as business. I think the notion of one or two people as business is foreign to them and so they can't regulate, or govern for this model. They only think on a grand scale, Only!

[artist]

I'm unemployed and I'm working a couple of little side jobs for about $100 every other week until I find something. I've been out for a year and in most cases I don't even hear back from HR beyond being told they recieved my application. Problem today is that there are hundreds of applicants for each job out there and I'm picky.

Personally I'm more concerned about the direction this country is going in as a whole. There is such a lack of American pride. Too many products being made cheaply and imported from other countries. Not enough support for the small local business, too many mega-stores. Patriotism is down the tubes in our communities and our children are not being taught some things out of fear of "offending" someone. (Yeah the last time I check the three families who protested in my town were working engineers with green cards who, by their own admission, were here for the standard of living and nothing else).

For me the economy situation is just a small part of what we, as a country, are facing. Unfortunatly too many people are blind to much of what is wrong with our country to help it move in the right direction. The "what's in it for me" mentality needs to stop and people need to start looking at the needs of their neighbors and their communities again.

JMO

[gimmethesimplelife]

For me personally, I'm really glad for the Affordable Care Act as at the moment it is looking like I will be picking up banquet shifts with no benefits strictly on a seasonal basis - though I will say that the good season for this is coming up. Other than that, I'm thinking it's going to be maybe about starting an online store and doing various things online for a few dollars here and there - such my belonging to a few online communities in which I make around $10 a month in amazon.com giftcard codes - every couple of months I log into amazon.com with these codes and buy a silver coin or two just in case things do get really really really bad - I mean much worse than they are now.

To answer to OP's question, though.....I will be voting as I believe to have the right to critique or complain, one has to vote. I look at Mexico which from 1929 to 2000 was governed by the PRI party which had a chokehold on power and mechanisms in place which allowed this chokehold to remain - and I think that as much as I complain about the US, I need to be grateful for the right to vote. So I do. And I will be voting for Obama. I'm not sure I am in total synch with Obama at the moment, as we can't keep burrowing these vast amounts of money forever without consequences. But I don't care for Romney's vision either as my perception is that that camp is completely ingorant of the impacts of market forces on everyday people are, and will govern accordingly. Seriously, if one were to sit down with Romney and attempt to explain that if Obamacare were repealed, for a good half of the country, they would be better off packing up and leaving the US due to financial risks inherent in our health care nightmare, he just wouldn't get it. Common sense at this level really seems beyond such people to me, and what a shame this is. I don't know how to fix that, either. Rob

[jody]

Artist, well said!

[ApatheticNoMore]

Yeah the last time I check the three families who protested in my town were working engineers with green cards who, by their own admission, were here for the standard of living and nothing else

don't worry, there will come a day when they no longer come to this country for the standard of living (especially educated workers like that). For too many reasons to name, but two are: it's expensive here, and the rest of the world is on the rise.

[mtnlaurel]

Simone, I have been thinking of your post quite a bit as the theatrics of the presidential race have unfolded since you originally posted this thread.

I am curious because I work with a segment of the population who are unemployed and underemployed. None of them has internet services. None is planning to vote.
At the end of tonight's 3rd Debate the moderator, Bob Schieffer, ended with advice his mother had given him "Go vote. It makes you feel big and strong."
If there is ever an election that it really matters to vote in, particularly if you live in a swing state, it is this one. It is neck and neck.
And if the people you work with can get to the polls, they WILL make a difference in the outcome of this election whatever way they decide to vote.

And if GOP driven Voter ID Laws, the adding up of Mitt's eternal gaffes, the 47% and 'legitimate' rape wouldn't get a person to the polls to give the GOP the finger, I don't know what would.


Is anyone reading this public policy forum who is unemployed and looking for work? Unemployed and trying to start a business?
My husband was unemployed 2008-2010. Extended unemployment benefits (along with a once healthy emergency fund we had saved) allowed us to hold on a bit longer until he finally landed a job with increasing responsibilities with a stable company that paid him 12% more than he was making in his previous position. With a merit based raise after 2 years he is now making 25% more than he was in 2008.
During his period of unemployment, I was able to get a job that was directly a result of ARRA stimulus funds (American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) with a government contractor.
We had to move to a part of the country that we never had any intention of living in for my husband's job, but after a year and a half of no offers and me working 50 hour weeks with a baby and preschooler at home, we said great, let's go! and feel incredibly grateful that we didn't lose everything in the process.


If so, will economic issues be more important to you than social ones when you decide whom to vote for?
Less important? Equally important?
"Social" Issues are at the center of my choice to NOT vote Republican this election.
However, I feel that the Social Issues that I am concerned about are also Economic Issues.
I do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.
Also, I greatly benefited from Planned Parenthood for my yearly gyno exam in my 20s which I paid for on a sliding scale when I was no longer on my parents' insurance, but could not afford anything other than catastrophic insurance coverage on my own.
Further, I am back on Birth Control Pills now (after 2 kids) to help with an Estrogen Dominance issue that is causing polyps on my cervix which increase my chances for cancer... and yes, I do expect my well-paid for (by me and DH's employer) health insurance to cover that medication and NOT to be called a Prostitute Slut by a Fat Man hiding behind a microphone.


Will you report which party you back and why?
For this election I am going to be voting the Democratic ticket for national seats and I am uncertain about local & state seats, I still need to do my research on the candidates.
I am totally turned off by the national GOP platform right now and disgusted with Republican gridlock in Congress.
I have voted Republican on occasion in the past and maybe will again in the future, but they are going to have to kick some of their kooky baggage to the curb and Call the Crazies Out in the Light of Day like Chris Christie has the luxury of being able to do on occasion for me to buy into what they are peddling again.

[Simone]

Mtn. Laurel, thank you for your detailed response. My intention in asking this question was to see if I could understand better how people who have been experience long-term joblessness since the financial cataclysm of 2008 decide whom to vote for.

I am glad that your family recovered its footing when your husband found a good job after two years, and that you yourself were able to hold things together in the interim with a stimulus-funded job.

If your family had not recovered, if both you and your husband were still out of work, if you had no health insurance, do you think you would see either candidate as having an actual plan to restore the economy, and your life, to normal?

[Gregg]

I am (intentionally) under-employed at the moment and will probably stay that way until some of my non income producing projects are wrapped up, maybe longer. The economy is my primary focus in the election for one simple reason...money. Not for me and not for corporations and not for the 1% or anything like that. I view the government as stewards of our collective wealth even if they don't. How they spend it is, or at least should be, a direct result of citizen input. I think myriad social programs are fine if a significant majority of people need or want them. I do, however, think that implementing them when the government's income is insufficient to cover the costs is short sighted. We've borrowed from our kids to support our opulent lifestyle for long enough.

I do not really think that one party is going to be a better steward of our money than the other is. They spend it in slightly different ways, but are both unsagacious when it comes to spending. The reason I give a nod to the right is because I think they are ever so slightly more inclined to create an environment in which business can succeed. If neither party is really going to cut spending then the only other way we have any hope of limiting the leveraging of our future is by increasing revenue. Its a hedge bet that is not without risk in non-economic ways, but still as simple as saying the government runs on money and the only reasonable way for them to get more is for the citizens of the US to generate more taxable income.

[early morning]

We've borrowed from our kids to support our opulent lifestyle for long enough. Gregg, I pretty much agree with your above statement, but (and I hope I'm not hijacking the threat too far!) this particular phrase really stands out for me. For me, though, it's not just, or even mostly, the debt we are leaving them, it's the fouled environment. Having less income due to higher future taxes and less opportunity will be bad, I have no doubt. But the health and monetary impact of environmental degradation will be far worse, and harder to solve. For that reason, I, our adult underemployed daughter, unemployed adult in-college-with-loans son, and my DH, who would love to be employed but is physically unable, will all be voting Democratic during this election. Both sides are backing business at the expense of the environment, but from my perch, the Republicans are far worse. Drill, baby, drill! Bah!

[Gregg]

Gregg, I pretty much agree with your above statement, but (and I hope I'm not hijacking the threat too far!) this particular phrase really stands out for me. For me, though, it's not just, or even mostly, the debt we are leaving them, it's the fouled environment.

Agreed. In my mind money isn't the only thing we're borrowing from them. Stealing might be a better term anyway. Money is really just a construct that in the really big picture doesn't mean that much, even in terms of trillions. Its arbitrary enough that it could be wiped out with the stroke of a pen if we were so inclined. Clean water and air, accessible energy, food, etc. are real and tangible and obviously necessary to survival. I will tell you that I'm in the green energy business and from our point of view there really isn't much difference between the parties. The Dems will be a little more mindful of the environment on the front end. The Reps will do more to promote new industries that will produce savings on the back side (that's where I work). A combination of the two would be nice. An awareness among politicians at 10x or 20x where we are now would also be nice.