Category Archives: Unemployment

This time last year, Sonia Rivera was unemployed. She lost her job in April 2009 after she was laid off as part of a national company’s efforts to cut costs and downsize. It was the first time since college that Sonia didn’t have a job. For 16 years, Sonia was a traffic manager, managing more than a dozen employees and a fleet of eight to nine trucks a day that served the tri-state area. It was a job she loved and enjoyed doing. But like many hundreds of thousands of workers, the poor economy forced Sonia’s company to cut jobs, driving about 30 workers to the unemployment lines. Sonia took some time off for herself, but quickly started to look for a job in earnest. She said she was fortunate because her family, including then 10-year-old daughter Vanessa, had her husband’s income and her unemployment benefits to help them through...
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Editor’s Note: Below is a guest post from Elaine Piraino-Holevoet of PIROET Design, who initially posted the entry on her blog, called ontheroadtogreenness. The blog is a tale of one person’s lifelong journey to becoming a good person living a green lifestyle. It is also the story of the people she has met, the things she has tried, the places she has traveled, and the ideas she has encountered along the way. These are all recounted in the hope of getting others to join her on her quest to save the planet. The blog entry below is reprinted with permission. Many who go without meat on Monday have made a conscious decision to do so—perhaps to improve their health or because they are concerned about climate change. Some are vegetarians or vegans and go without meat every day for ethical reasons. Whatever the motivation, it is a privilege when one...
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When I heard the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) proclaim on Sept. 20 that the recession was over, my immediate, knee-jerk reaction was: “You’ve got to be kidding me!” According to the NBER, a nonpartisan group of economists, the recession actually ended last year—June 2009. Like many people, I want the recession to be over for both personal and professional reasons. But like many people who see everyday the human effects of the devastation of this so-called Great Recession I can’t help but utter disbelief in what economists are saying out loud. Let’s not forget, five days before the NBER said the recession was over, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that more people are struggling with poverty—hitting the highest level recorded since 1994. And children felt the hardest poverty hit, with one child in five affected, according to The New York Times. And on Thursday at our biennial Programs...
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As we headed into the Labor Day weekend, The New York Times published a story about the latest unemployment figures initially titled “U.S. Lost Jobs in August, but Fewer Than Expected.” Friday’s headline seemingly tried to soften the blow of a harsh truth. More people are still losing their jobs, but, hey, it’s not as much as we expected. If you drill further down into the story you will find the number of unemployed people in the country jumped from 14.59 million in July to 14.86 million in August. By the end of the story, you learn about the people willing to take any job, even if it means taking a pay cut, just as long as they have a job. That’s the underemployed. And their numbers have “reached historic highs” in Connecticut, the Hartford Business Journal reported. The underemployed includes people who saw their full-time hours reduced to part-time...
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