Bad News For The Unemployed

Apparently you've never been in Michigan. I've been unemployed for years, and the job market is still horrible. 4000 people at job fairs for maybe 100-200 jobs tops, Minimum wage at fast food places, and even then you have competition for those jobs from the damn illegals that are here in the country. Solution! Get rid of the illegals! 14% Unemployment sucks, and it sucks even more when you have to 'bum' rides to school to take tests. I have to do that now with me taking online classes at the local CC

You can argue this that and the other thing, but surely you can see how 99 weeks of unemployment was crazy. That's over 2 years!

For the Illegal thing. Not to be mean to any race but, It seems the Mexican's really work hard for that low pay. White people will work, but they dont work the extent of that plus they wouldnt wanna work for that little.

lol silly white people

Working at fast food restaurants is for the birds. Dealing drugs is a more respectable job than that.

<_< No, it's not...

2 years = 104 weeks.

It's true, a hispanic will work for low wages because ppl want to get paid higher. Including ppl with little experience get offered a job for 8 bux an hour to do a bit of yard work and first thing out their mouth is "No, pay me $15 an hour". So who will take the job for $8? of course a hispanic will. even if they are illegal but guess who are the ones bitching for pay at $8? the ones who are legal...

urdoinitrong.

lol close enough, for some reason I did (99/4)/12.

Ok so it's 1 year 10 months 3 weeks. That's still a long time not to find some kind of work.

Someone may have made this point, I've not read the whole thread, but I'm going to throw in my thoughts anyway.

In mid 2008 I was laid off when Dell sent my job to South America for cheaper labor. I was eligable for unemployment, I got $155/week to feed myself and my wife and pay the bills. That works out to be about half minimum wage. Needless to say, we had to cut back. We canceled everything we possibly could except the phone and internet as they were necessary to find/apply for work (My temp guys contacted me by email most of the time). The house we live in is not legally rentable since its in such bad shape and owned by some relatives of mine so, since it was just being used for storage anyway, it was fine for us to live here free. Without that mercy we never would have made it.

Eventually, even though I was looking for work every day both in and outside my area of expertise, my unemployment ran out. I just didn't have the stellar work history I needed to beat out my competition. I'd dropped out of college and never bothered paying for certifications because I either A) was waiting to be eligable for my employer to pay for it or B) broke. In the mean time, I continued doing freelance tech work by referral and to friends/family for tips or food and temp jobs when I could get them making minimum wage or barely over. I checked weekly with 5 temp offices. Usually one of them would have something for me for a day or two, sometimes not. We went days without food when I couldn't buy or steal it, weeks eating only home-made bread and water because we couldn't afford anything else. Maybe we should've leaned on our family more, maybe we did the right thing suffering through it, I don't know. Either way I'm a damned good cook now!

By the time I landed my current job in late 2009 I had lost 60 lbs due to starvation (not that I didn't have it to lose lol). I never want to be unemployed again. I can't even enjoy my days off anymore because, even over a year later, it feels too much like being trapped.

I don't know how the job market is right now, but I know that for me finding work was NOT easy and I had to change careers to do it. I set aside my dreams as a musician for the more practical choice of tech skills only to set those useless skills aside for Chemistry.

Its easy to say that people are slacking off if they've not found work in a year or so when you're not living it. Its easy to pretend people are making enough to live on across America when your belly is full. Its easy to believe that no one's living without climate control when you're toasty all winter and chilly all summer.

Its hard to believe things aren't as great or easy as people tell you, that dreams don't come true or that love isn't all you need. Especially when the chips are down. You have to work at it if you're going to survive something like that as a couple.

/rant

You're demonizing minimum wage as if it doesn't serve a purpose. People who hire illegals get away with what they do because not all of them aspire to become a US citizen, some send the money home where the miniscule pay they recieved does a lot more good. Minimum wage serves a good purpose in my opinion, it's not practical to believe that pay that sustains illegals is enough for people who actually pay rent, utilities, taxes, etc.

If you were an employer, would you hire someone with no credentials, no work experience, no references, and on top of that pay them $20 an hour? I really doubt it. Is the system conspiring against you? The answer is an obvious no. If all you want to do is lay around all day, then do so. Just don't expect to be paid for it. Now, there are people who validly got screwed over, it does happen. But those are the people who have work experience and can find a job, so realistically they should have a new job within 2 years.

I wouldn't want to live in a house with 10mil *** people. Might be more tolerable if they weren't *** all the time, idk, it's still a lot of people to live with.

True, but ask a teenager or even someone here in maryland. I get mad at my brothers for denying to get work with someone offering them about $7-$9/hr. They say they want more money....

I worked since I was 15 years old, I started out with just $5 bux an hour just filing papers in a office and now I make 40.5k a year, i never stayed without work, i always had a job, i didnt have a car, i walked everywhere.... but my brothers...nah they "NEED" a car to work... I find a lot make excuses to not take a job thats just down the street...

Ha Ha I love the racist *** mentality of these 2 interweb hero's...I guess you 2 were scarred when you walked in on mom getting DP'D by 2 black *** while your *** pop's was taping that ***jerking off...just sayin' ~.0

To an extent Ravahan is right. A lot of people don't understand that life can be a ***. I have friends at college who have 3.75 GPAs and I know they won't be able to do a job when they leave. Success is not a function of knowledge or intelligence, or experience. Success boils down to only one factor:

Ambition

Ambition is the process of loving and hating yourself at the SAME time. I'm sure everyone on these forums thinks I am an arrogant *** hole. I'll be honest with you; I hate myself. No matter how much I accomplish, or how many good things happen to me, I am never happy with myself. I base my entire life upon competition and so far I have yet to really "fail" at anything. At the same time I've always completely failed at being satisfied.

You need to decide whether you want to be happy or successful. You really can't be both, because the moment you become content you lose that drive. People have to understand that the entire course of your life should be a quest to better yourself and your family. You should be always improving your education, working for promotions, etc. A SHITLOAD of Americans get so far and then they stop going. Sometimes the most successful people aren't even that smart, they just don't give up no matter how much people hate them or how bad they really are.

Lol, that's so true. Kids these days think money grows on trees.

Here in NJ you can get a job starting at $8-$10/hr pumping gas. There are openings for these jobs all the time. Easiest job in the world and you can tell off customers all you want. Yet I'm sure there are people bitching about these jobs too.

I love people who can't understand basic english. I wasn't calling them "***" myself. I said "thats like saying" the comment wasn't my own, it was a hypothetical which addressed simliarly HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE concepts in an analogous way.

I'd rather be moderately "successful" while maintaining great relationships with my wife and, in the future, kids.

I guess it depends on your the strength of your wife. Not every family can handle having a father who works 24/7. Barack Obama definetely gives up a lot of time with his family in order to do his job. Many CEOs do as well. There is no question that success requires a lot of sacrifice.

FTFY.

I think he mixes up the typical american capitalist dream with the more realistic pursuit of happiness.
I'd say as long as you are happy and comfortable your pay scale is irrelevant :/
We desire all these things for comfort.
When it gets past that it's all for naught.