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When Unemployment Benefits Run Out
Job openings in Oregon are up but so are unemployment claims. Back in September, we heard from people who were worried about maxing out unemployment benefits. At that time, there was another federal extension on the horizon, but now that money is running out and, this time, it looks like Congress won't extend benefits.
That leaves many people without a lot of options. Some of them have been receiving unemployment checks for as long as 99 weeks. Tom Fuller from Oregon's Employment Department says that in addition to helping out with career advice, his department has also been pointing people towards resources like rental assistance and food banks to help them out when they've exhausted their benefits.
Are you unemployed? Are you facing the end of your benefits soon or have they already run out? What will the end of unemployment benefit extensions mean for you?
Tagged as: benefits · jobs · recession · unemployment
Photo credit: Pawel Niewiadomski / Creative Commons
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Everyone I see around Eugene and before the present, in Keller, Texas that has a tool in his hand speaks only Spanish and most likely is in this country illegally. These people not only breakOUR laws they break those of the country they left without a valid visa for the USA and via an illegal crossing point.
Maybe a good ploy would be to trace one of these furtive looking people to their employers and perhaps obtain a job that way. One might start the conversation by asking the immigration status of the people he was employing. You know, the ones taking our jobs.
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I am a divorced 59 yr old female with a masters degree. I have been out of work since 08/07. I have moved three times to three different states hoping to find employment....from CA to NV and now OR. I have probably had less than 20 interviews over this period of time. Now the end has come with my benefits. There is nothing coming in, no health insurance either. It really bothers me when I hear some politicians insinuate that this will motivate people such as myself to get a job! People in our age bracket are finding it almost impossible to find work right now....I mean any work at all even outside our career fields. I am not sure what is next...back to college? food stamps and housing assistance and welfare? We have to let our representatives know we need a Tier V desperately and sooner than later.
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This is where family comes into play. This is why we have children in the first place. Family! Generations assisting each other when times are hard. This is the way it was traditionally.
That is why family and clan are still so important in the Third World nations. Those people flooding in here will weather these conditions much better than will most of the native born. The Third Worlders are used to depending on each other. Since we seem to be regressing to Banana Republic status, family may once again come to mean something more than once a yr group photos around a Xmas tree.
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I'm 45 and will reach my 2 year anniversary of being unemployed this Saturday. (Not something one really wants to celebrate...) I have had no luck whatsoever getting a job, and feel like I have been (screwed) by the state. I received a grand total of 14 weeks of unemployment benefits, in 2008, and then the State decides -- retroactively -- that I should not have gotten them. now they want me to pay back nearly $3,000! I might be willing to try, if I could actually land a job...
Like I said, I feel like I have been (screwed) by the State...and I didn't even get any "pleasure" out of it!
(When I say 'screwed' I really mean a different word, but I don't want to get OPB in trouble with the right-wing wackos at the FCC.)
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In addition, I am forced to compete against the kids who are between 16 and 25, and the "Immigrants of Questionable Documentation."
So while the LAW says Employers may not discriminate on the basis of age, it sure feels like that is exactly what is happening.
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Eastern elites and the capitalist class persuaded Boobus americanus that smoke stack industry (manufacturing) was for lesser beings across the sea. WE could get by marvelously with high tech industries. They were telling us that even as they were shifting capital, training and technology abroad. The only superior industry the USA now possesses is that designed to rain death and destruction on orhers. The sole reason those jobs haven't gone abroad is because of national security issues.
Now because the same class are insisting on open borders even manual labor is tough to find at wages the native born can live on.
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I'm a 58 year old woman who finished college a two years ago. I haven't been able to get work, and I'm not eligible for unemployment because I was a student. I keep applying for work -- anything I can do -- but so far, no luck. My only option to pay the rent, food, and utilities is to take money out of my IRA. Unfortunately, I now have to pay taxes plus a penalty for doing so. Now I'm facing a tax bill, and the only way I can pay the taxes is to take more money out of the IRA ...
The IRS allows early withdrawals from an IRA if there is an emergency. Unfortuantely, the IRS says that having no income is not an emergency. Only paying for college, buying a home, or paying medical bills is an "emergency."
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I have always suspected that the various banks/agencies that were enticing people in middle age to borrow money, go to college and get a degree was somehow dishonest. We've all seen the pics and read the heart warming stories of 60 y olds going to collage and gaining a degree. What we do't read about is how the degree improved that 60 yr old's capacity to get a better job or enhance their earnings.
I would wager that in most cases, today, it was money that could have been more profitably spent buying a few acres of country land where one might put a trailer house and raise a food crop.
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I do feel that I will soon be on my own. I was layed off March 1, 2009 so it has been 14 mos. Unemployment benefits have been great but resumes and online applications have yielded nothing. Companies rarely even acknowledge your application and resume. I can assume there are so many applicants these companies are overwhelmed themselves. My benefit extensions should be cut in half this month unless there are other extensions available. We will not be able to continue. My COBA health coverage ends this month.
At 55 and my husband 60 yrs. old (lead carpenter 30+ years) also unemployed in Bend, OR leave us with few choices.
We can sell our upgraded 1500 sq.ft home of 15 yrs. We can ask my mom to move in and help us now that she is a widow. Staying in Bend does not look like an option for us.
Cathy
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I'm yet another 60 year old who was recently laid off, with not many prospects in sight. It seems to me that job hunting is more and more specialized, that employers are seeking people with finely-tuned experience and training. When I was younger it seemed that employers were more willing to hire someone based on general exeprience and wits.
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Mr. Fuller does not get it.
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Of course he doesn't -- he has a nice, cushy STATE job! Courtesy of those of us who are struggling to get by!!!!!!!
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As important an issue as this is, you're cutting off the show at 9:49?!?!?!
Seems like the pledge break could wait until the BBC programme starts!
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Your guest seems to think (or at least imply) that finding a job on iMatchSkills that matches your profile somehow magically puts you on the road to employment. That is patently untrue. I've found dozens of jobs for which I am very qualified, and distributed my resume far and wide. But getting callbacks for jobs seems elusive. Employers can be very selective. The scant few times I've gotten interviews, I've felt like even the slightest wrong thing said or missing "required" skill on your resume sends you straight to the "no" pile.
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Many employers won't even talk to you b/c you don't have what they consider a "stable work history". Fact is, they may only be looking at the last 4 or 5 years, when the job seeker actually had a very stable full-time work history for 12 or 13 years prior to that. Yet, a person can be shot down due to some pissant, none drug-related, none person-to-person "barely" a felony conviction (from another state) from 1995!
If you're laid off after doing [pretty-much] the same thing for 20 years, it becomes impossible to find work in an even similar field & you're "not qualified" to do anything else. But if you've done alot of different things, you don't have any "experience".
I've worked with people who've been temping for the same company doing the same thing for a year, only to end up fired or laid off or whatever - instead of being hired on full. Then it somehow counts as a strike against them that they've been a temp for the past year!
What do you do when all your reliable references are out of work themselves or otherwise no-longer reachable?
Btw, the so-called "official" unemployment rate [both nationally & state-wide] isn't true at all. If you include all the folks who're no-longer counted b/c their benifits ran out, people who're working part-time (which could be just afew hours aweek), etc., you'll find that those numbers DOUBLE easily!
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Feel like I'm joining a 12-step program regarding all the previous comments. I'm 49 and have been unemployed since 2007. In early 2000 and 2001 I submitted hundreds of resumes to get five interviews and one job offer. I knew the economy and job market were changing for worse.
My previous employer sold the business. The new owner told me, "I love your work, you have a lot of skills I need, but I'm not going to pay you what you're worth." I quit and returned to Portland where my cost of living would be lower.
In ways I prepaired for economic downturn. I set money aside in savings, investments, and 401k with the idea that rainy days would arrive. I also bumped the six months of living expenses set aside guidline to three years.
But I'm guilty of not looking at the economy realistically. There were too many economic bubbles in the first decade of the 21st century that clearly indicated the U.S. economy is sick. The U.S. has been damaging itself over the last four decades so where we find ourselves today should not be as surprising as it.
What did we think would happen when we sent millions of jobs overseas? How can we build a knowledge economy when the quality of education diminishes year after year? How can we have a thriving economy when all the wealth and resources are owned by a handful of billionaires?
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But we do have money to maintain about 700 military bases world wide and fight numerous wars for the sake of another country whose supporters in our country have more clout than you or I. And much more money.
Maybe it is time to insist our politicians concentrate their energies and our taxes on solving OUR economic troubles rather than Israel's political problems.
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The fact that there are a lot of individual claiming for their unemeployment benefit this is a manifestation that unemployment issue had reach into alarming stage. Give to them what they suppose to receive, the burden of being unemployed is already a stressful thing how much more if the little financial assistance will be delayed.
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I'm a 40 yr old male from central Oregon. I have been on and off unemployment for 2 yrs. When I found work the longest the job lasted was about 2 and 1/2 months. Well yesterday i went to check my good ol' Reliacard and noticed no funds there. Hmm, (quick call to unemployment!) and 1hour 15min later and i'm told that my claim expired on April 4th and here its the end of August. There computer screwed up and didn't stop my extension and make me start a new claim based on the small amount of work I had done in the last year. It was going to drop my weekly benifit amount by 225 bucks a week bringing my insulting weekly amount to 115 dollars. What I was told was that they owed me back payments from April 4th till now at 115 bucks a week. As I should have been on a new claim. Then they proceeded to tell me that the overpayment dept will be sending out a bill for the amount they had been paying me. which like I said above is 225 bucks more than my current amount. I asked them how this is my fault, the 2 ladies I talked with both said its not your fault, we even see you tried to open a new claim in July and were told not to. So i asked again Why should i be held responsible for a computer error on the states part? I got "Well its just a legal thing".
I'm seriously thinking of making a lawsuit over this,as i feel i have done nothing wrong, and followed all there rules waiting at the end of an extension hoping another one would kick in.
The thing that bugs me most is the thought "how many others has this happened to that the state has just rolled over on." The fact that they just reduce your amount because or a couple months work, i hate being a burden on my country but dammit how many years on solid working and paying into unemployment have we all done before all this crap!115.00 a week with a family of 5 and my wife works for the school district so not getting rich! Her job is the only reason were still in this F***ed up state!
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Comments are now closed.
I'm a 58 y/o white guy, having been employed as a vocational counselor for thirty years, and just exhausted my first year of benefits; next week, I get nothing, then begin my first extension. Single, I'm using COBRA benefits - for which the premium relief only last nine months (runs out in July). I've had perhaps nine or ten interviews over the past year, but inevitably find myself competing with people a third my age, who have salary histories far below mine.
I am nevertheless aware that I am one of the lucky ones, who actually has some liquid savings and little debt; having what I regard as a fifteen year work horizon remaining, I may be able to recoup my losses - if and when I finally find a job. From my unique perspective as a Vocational Counselor, this is the worst I've seen within my lifetime. It is ugly, and will get unfathomably worse, should there be a second shoe to drop.