Unemployment and social services
Today’s unemployment rate is so high that in NH they are having a huge layoff within Employment Securities, they are the people who are in charge of motivating people through training to get back to work, they are also the same people who are in charge of handing out unemployment to residents in the state of NH. Ted Siefer a writer for The Union Leader writes about job loss in an unsuspecting place, “The New Hampshire Department of Employment Security is laying off 53 full-time and 19 part-time workers” (Siefer, 2011). One of those workers happened to be a counselor I met with each month who I met with to go over potential job searches with and sometimes he would put me on hold for benefits if he thought I was unable to work. I was in a car accident at the end of August and it was very scary because I was on the highway and something flew off a tow truck and I had run it over. I was lucky a police officer was watching traffic and he was able to help me but I am still recovering from the effects of my accident. I see a chiropractor a few times a week, go to acupuncture and I just started psychical therapy and I decided to go to school when someone from the admissions office called and told me, “There was grant money for me”. I still have to look for work and having the pressure of being in the “profiling program” was something I worried about all the time. This effects me because now I feel like the worry is gone but my counselor lost his job and now he has to collect unemployment, do you see a certain irony there?
The reason for the layoff is a strange one, but that is the state of NH for you, “The good news is we have one third of the claims we had 18 months ago. The bad news is, with claims being lower, our base funding disappears," Reardon said. "We receive no state funding. Our federal funding is absolutely contingent on whatever the claim cycle is” (Siefer, 2011). So because the employment rate has gone down there is less funding for the rest of us who are looking for jobs. “There are 11,000 current unemployment claims in New Hampshire, down from 39,000 in March 2010” (Siefer, 2011).
Some people are out of work for many reasons my case is a little different, I took a stressful job in the finance industry and survived for 5 ½ months and then they let me go. I am so thankful that I am no longer there and it was not a good fit for me. I tried really hard and stayed longer hours to make sure I had a higher productivity level, when I noticed there were steps I could take to make it higher. I worked at a call center and we had a 30 minute break and for the rest of the time we had to be on the phones, even if I was helping someone off the phones by processing paperwork or making calls out my productivity went down. So I fall into the category where people take jobs that don’t fit for one reason or another and loose them. In 2009 my company closed due to a loss of contract with Department of State, I loved the job and I miss working there it was a different type of call center environment but the work was good and people were nice to each other and that makes a big difference. I went back to school and got my Bachelors in Communication and in January of 2011, I went in fearless to John Hancock in the mutual funds department because I knew I could learn anything. What I learned is that trainers need to be aware that adults learn differently and you cannot train them all the same way and that a positive environment and open communication makes a big difference with interpersonal relationships with managers.
I found a really interesting point on a website called The American Thinker and although I share a different political affliction then the writer what he has to say is really great and gets to the point of unemployment and social factors involved with it. “Long term unemployment makes the chance of landing a job that much harder -- and a myriad of other problems emerge: family breakdown, loss of homes, increased credit problems, more reliance on food stamps (also at a record high), loss of morale and the corroding of the human spirit” (Lasky, 2011). Since I have had periods on unemployment in the last few years I have really become more savvy when it comes to looking for help with basic bills, Unitil (heat), PSNH (electricity) give people a break when it comes to paying those bills, an application is necessary but it is totally worth it. Unitil will provide a credit for those who have been paying their bill but for something such a job loss, accident or whatever the case people will receive help. Last year it was easy to get a discount for PSNH you just had to show proof of income and then 70% would be taken off your account. Since there was a high fraud rate in the State of NH there are other factors to be taken into consideration which makes it harder to get, and I do not qualify because I get assistance from my parents and that is considered income.
There are other services that I take advantage of such as a free medication program called Bridges to Access and I get medicine free which would normally be over $1,000 dollars for a three months supply, I have epilepsy so it is a given that I will need the medication. The recent change to that service is a ten dollar administrative fee that which is really not a big deal and I feel lucky that my neurologist suggested the program to me, what they do is negotiate with the big drug companies and then aid is provided for people who cannot afford health insurance. Here is the link just in case anyone wants to take advantage of it. http://www.bridgestoaccess.com/
So the next service that a lot of people need to use is Food Stamps, I have only been on it one month because my dad went over to the Human Services office and made me fill out paperwork. Although he helps me out with bills for medical from my accident he gets really stressed out about money so I went ahead and applied. Going to the human services office felt very strange, people looked strange and I knew that some of those people did not have the resources to pull themselves out of their own way. Some people there have been down for so long that they cannot get back up. The room was full of people that really needed help and I think the support for them in general is very low, some people where actually turned away because they did not have an appointment. I sent mine application off to the main office in Concord, NH and they sent me an appointment by mail. Boy, did I ever learn so much about the system as I did within 15 that was about how long my appointment was. I looked into getting disability and realized that was not for me, the accident caused me short-term health problems and I have resources to keep me afloat. If you apply for disability a red flag will go to social security and then they will contact unemployment and you have to prove you will be unable of working for four years. So this is even before getin approved, I continue to look for work and file for unemployment every Sunday and I have to put four jobs I applied to in each week. Craigslist is the best site around because local company’s list jobs without having to pay for advertising and a variety of administrative jobs that would fit me are listed. The only problem is about 200 hundred other job seekers are looking for work and the employer can only bring so many people in to interview, such as the case with a chiropractor I interviewed with. How awkward is it to have your competition in the same room?
For this assignment it was easier to use personal experiences rather than to come up with a specific event, these are events that happen in millions of Americans lives each day and there are so many layers of events that happen it just feels like a cyclical loop. Social scientists may be able to look at unemployment and social services on many different levels but probably they would be more likely to use a specific technique or take a particular angle to promote whatever idea or intention they may have to make their point. That depends on who the audience is as well, is it a report for a collogue or someone in the academic field, will the information be provided at a conference, lecture or a meeting with political leaders it all depends on their goals and who they want to share the information with. Such as the authors of the book, they could have gone more in depth on each of the theories but they decided that would not be helpful in getting to a variety of their points instead of just a few. Each topic in the first 64 pages probably has it owns forum, thesis papers, books in details that describe each one in an academic way. “We want to focus here on different types of explanations of change, that is, on the theories of change, rather than on theorists” (Harper & Leicht pg. 15) .
Harper, C.L. & Leicht, K.L. (2011). Exploring social change: America and the world (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN: 9780205748082Lasky, E. (2011, September 17). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/long_term_unemployment_and_obama.html
Siefer, T. (2011, December 30). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.unionleader.com/article/20111230/NEWS02/111239996
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