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    kruntLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 12:27pm

    Lots of them will probably get jobs now. There is known to be a spike in re-employment as people's UI benefits stop.

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      Lacey Donohuekrunt
      12/28/13 12:29pm

      But isn't the spike also false because some people give up and stop looking? Therefore they're no longer "unemployed"?

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      kruntLacey Donohue
      12/28/13 12:31pm

      I'm not sure. I think most people would start looking harder as their benefits stop.

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    strahans-diastemaLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 12:55pm

    I recommend that EVERY unemployed person attempt to call barry at the white house and ask him one simple question:

    why is he wasting the time of the good people of this country by focusing on mandatory, paid healthcare (hurts people with low income) and making illegals legal (hurts all of us) when he should be focusing on ways to create GOOD jobs for Americans (say in skilled manufacturing, for example...) by incentivizing the "evil" rich people to put more of their billions into the economy as opposed to hoarding their billions?

    barry is a shit leader. a real leader would, rather than just attempt to tax the shit out of the "haves", find a way to make it worthwhile for the rich to invest more heavily in this country for the purpose of creating jobs, which in turn gets people off the govt's tit and increases their individual levels of pride and worth.

    give a man a fish, he eats for a day...teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

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      frau meixia, twitter troll extraordinairestrahans-diastema
      12/28/13 1:19pm

      Did someone pay you to say that or do you just not read very much?

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      daniil smarmsstrahans-diastema
      12/28/13 1:26pm

      What if you teach a man to fish, tell him all about how fishing's the most important thing there is, and then you leave him in the middle of the desert?

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    ad infinitumLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 2:08pm

    I am so fucking incredibly thankful that I finally found a job after more than a year of unemployment. I'm in my late 30s, and at this point I've done the job search thing several times in multiple cities, but this last round was one of the most demoralizing things I've ever experienced.

    I went to a very good school, and I have nearly two decades of solid experience, much of it with large, well-known companies, and pages of glowing references. From the time I first started looking for a full-time job my senior year in college, my experience was roughly the same—I sent out resumes, and I routinely got calls back and interviews scheduled, even when my degree or work history wasn't an ideal fit for the position. Then my company closed its LA office with no notice in September of last year, and I spent the next year sending out dozens of resumes every week into a complete void. I couldn't get calls back on jobs that literally sounded like they'd written the job description from my resume. I couldn't get calls back on temp jobs that I could do in my sleep that were offering half of what I used to make (and while I was comfortable on my salary, as a single adult with no dependents except my pets, I was never what you would call "highly paid").

    I don't know how many fucking jobs I applied for during that year, but I know it was minimum of three per week for unemployment purposes and almost always more than that, and in that entire time I got a grand total of three calls back, and three interviews, and I'm well aware that I'm incredibly luck to have landed the third one, even though it's a contract position without benefits and with a much longer commute than I would have even considered a year ago (I work in Torrance, for god's sake).

    The whole business world has changed so drastically in the last several years—employers have learned they can work employees' fingers to the bone doing what would have been two or three full-time jobs before everything went to hell with the mortgage crisis, and, unsurprisingly, they're completely unwilling to readjust now that the market has. And the American public is basically fucked because of it.

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      linkedintoitad infinitum
      12/28/13 2:35pm

      Thanks for testifying. And wait until you guys get over 45. Then funsy times when you get laid off. I know I know you too pretty and teh smart to suffer discrimination. Well the experience of over 50 dudes has converted many prior libertarians to liberals in the last years.

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      Jerry-Netherlandad infinitum
      12/28/13 6:29pm

      Congrats on getting something, albeit in Torrance (much of which is really a nice area, just a major shlepp from most of LA., so the commute must be a drag. (Note to to NYers: Kinda like if you live in Manhattan and got a job in Far Rockaway).

      The part about it being "contract work w/o benefits" hit me like tin foil on a cavity. This is the shit they're pulling on everyone de cette certain age nowadays (over 35, but especially over 50) - and what choice does one have until the unemployment rate dips below 6% and it becomes a worker's market? One must take it; without vacation or sick pay, without health benefits (thank God for the ACA), probably without even an assigned parking spot. But here you are, a highly educated, accomplished woman being treated like it's your first day out of school and you should be grateful for their largess.

      Best of luck to you (and keep looking on the side, because the right position will come your way while you're toiling away in the South Bay.

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    e.nonLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 12:38pm

    yeah... and homeless don't vote. i'm almost incoherent with rage that this is happening. what the fuck does congress expect people to do? the failure of the political class, a media culture easily distracted by the week's latest internet hoohaw... wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that a selfie was the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD... and this week, it's ducks. meanwhile, i'd be interested if there's an increase in domestic violence cases and suicides. all laid at the feet of the country's 'leaders'... who are on vacation. one that started weeks before your's and will end weeks later....

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      jrfdeuxe.non
      12/28/13 12:43pm

      Bread. Circuses. :-(

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      Perry Downingjrfdeux
      12/28/13 1:09pm

      You'd think they would know to stop futzing with the Bread part.

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    PrayForDentonLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 12:28pm

    I'd weep for them, but I wasn't even able to get unemployment benefits in the first place because my employer decided to be a grudge-holding dickburger.

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      JennifartPrayForDenton
      12/28/13 12:32pm

      Better than a dick-holding grudgeburger.

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      apeshapedmanJennifart
      12/28/13 12:41pm

      I don't know. They seem about equal.

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    toothpetardLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 1:08pm

    Bootstraps: it's what's for dinner!

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      Jerry-Netherlandtoothpetard
      12/28/13 6:48pm
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    kumfinemyyLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 3:02pm

    Those who have good paying jobs with benefits should be glad they still have them. Soon it may be you. Unless you're in the one percent, anything can happen and when it does stop blaming it on the poors and welfare because you'll also be begging for scraps. See the Sandy victims, how many of them voted against their best interest?

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      Jerry-Netherlandkumfinemyy
      12/28/13 6:54pm

      And how many of them re-elected Christie , whose first move in office was to cancel a $6 billion infrastructure project, half paid by Federal funding (new Hudson Tunnel)? And post-Sandy, 75% of the area is still a mess (in spite of his deceptive PR).

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      kumfinemyyJerry-Netherland
      12/28/13 7:04pm

      Yep, you understand. Of course, I like to refer to our Staten Island.

      I love bringing up Storm Sandy. Like I said, anything can happen. When Sandy took your home, let's see how well you work at your job when your home is gone. Hypocrites, all of them.

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    rcb2Lacey Donohue
    12/28/13 12:36pm

    Can't wait to see the comments which state "people are too proud/lazy/think low-wage jobs are just for teenagers" in one sentence, then "but jobs at McDonalds/Wal-Mart were never meant to be a career or provide a living wage, sice they're meant for teenagers" in the next.

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      ThisMachineKillsNeoliberalsrcb2
      12/28/13 1:00pm

      If you press them enough, they'll reveal their actual economic philosophy

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      Ballard1989ThisMachineKillsNeoliberals
      12/28/13 1:20pm

      The elite don't want to "kill the poor." They want to keep them as a source of cheap labor.

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    GoOnWithoutMeLacey Donohue
    12/28/13 1:16pm

    Having been unemployed in the past year, and now gratefully employed, this still freaks me the hell out. Because despite being a known hard worker, successful program developer (though not STEM programs so really, how successful can that be), with lots of good connections, it took me the better part the year to find a position (paying a little less/lesser benefits but full time and "permanent"). I had used half of my UIE, took a bunch of part-time jobs, and was starting to panic.

    I can't imagine people who are in this situation, the mess this has made of their minds, and their ability to think, plan, and act. I'm just barely getting some of that back. Congress really sucks.

    And the long-term unemployed do have to work for their benefits. Job creators take advantage of this free labor and almost never hire those people. But it's the UE who are using the system, right?

    Anything we can do? Call, write our reps? Infrastructure jobs? Storm the Bastille?

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      benjaminalloverLacey Donohue
      12/28/13 1:21pm

      Won't this cause a further economic contraction? This represents a lot of liquidity in the marketplace- poor people tend to spend most of their money- and that is suddenly going to evaporate from the economy. It seems like a poor strategy for the money saved...

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        Zabellabenjaminallover
        12/28/13 1:49pm

        But the feels! Mr. and Mrs. 'Murica will no longer have to complain about their tax dollars going to support people who won't get jobs. Not can't get jobs, to them it's always won't get jobs.

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        hellaciousZabella
        12/28/13 2:29pm

        Of course, their unemployed son or daughter is doing their best to find a job...not everyone else.

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