The REAL Truth About Unemployment

Last week, I overheard two ladies having a mini-political harumph at Wal-Mart. They were on their soapboxes about how many people were living the "high life" coasting on unemployment. They went on and on rehashing the same bogus arguments we've heard a hundred times. Lazy people getting rich off the government and laying about while good, decent folk work every day to pay their unemployment. **SPOILER ALERT** Every employer pays into unemployment - the worker doesn't.

OK, I get it. Most of you aren't unemployed. Some of you never have been and don't really know how it works. Well, sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful ship - mine. I think my story of employment can be an eye-opener for some.

After eighteen years at one company, I was permanently laid off on July 15, 2020. The company shed itself of thirty-five souls with larger salaries than their positions required from years of good service and COLAS. These souls were also those with higher-than-average medical expenses - although good luck proving that.

I filed for unemployment immediately. Seven months and a day later, I received a partial check for the weeks I'd been unemployed. I had started a new job the month before. In those months with no paycheck and no unemployment, I burned through 100% of my small 401K for which I'd worked those eighteen years. Hope I can be a Greeter when I hit 70+ years. Fingers crossed!

But my story doesn't end there. On April 21, I was permanently laid-off again, as the company I joined in December restructured - read outsourced - and eliminated the need for my role. So, I filed again.

It's been four weeks and no unemployment checks filling my coffers yet. So I called today, went through the convoluted menu options, and waited for twenty minutes to speak with someone - that's a vast improvement over the four HOURS I waited back in July. The lady I spoke with told me that, if I hadn't received a check by Memorial Day two weeks away, call back and she'll put in a request for information with the processing center. Oh, joy!

I have a wife, a slew of pets - many with costly medical issues, and a mortgage that's two months in the red. We have a pile of bills so far behind, we're about to lap them. And we have $231 in the bank. Gasoline alone will be $125 until my wife's next paycheck on the 26th - five days before Memorial Day. I have no answers, no credit cards, and no family to borrow from.

Is this the "high life" the two shoppers were railing against? I guess so. Oh, and did I add we owe over $300 to our local taxes as we worked outside the city we lived in for 2020? Good thing all that free money is headed our way - by the way, unemployment pays you less than 40% of your salary and you still pay taxes out of that.

So, next time you hear someone disparaging those freeloaders on unemployment, remember that some of us are trying with all our might to find gainful employment. I, for one, put out ten to fifteen resumes each week. I WANT to work! And I'm willing to bet that most people like me want to, too.

But the pandemic has scared businesses out of their torpor and made them wary to hire people like me - a middle-aged worker with health needs. Until they reopen the world and the cogs of the economy start rolling again, unemployed workers like me don't have hope of a brighter future. Our hope resides at the processing center.