I went back in my retirement file the other day and took a look at my Social Security statement. You remember this idea. We get something in the mail, roughly semi annually, that tells us how much we have coming in our monthly check assuming we stay employed at the same wage rate we now make and until we retire at an age to be named later. That bit of sarcasm is a veiled reference to the financial viability of the fund itself.
That little ray of bureaucratic sunshine that is "Your Social Security Statement" told me that I had been contributing to Social Security every single year since 1969, 40 straight years. That streak started with the Chinese restaurant my senior year in high school, the dishwashing in the Jackson Hole area that summer, the summers in a salvage freight terminal whilst in college, and various finance and accounting jobs after twice graduating from colleges. For a protracted length of time I have been building a balance in history's oldest 401K plan, managed under the trusteeship of the United States government.
Several months ago, I was laid off from a company after twenty one years of service. How was I going to keep up this uninterrupted record of wage earning in this economy that was the foundation of the retirement hoped for by my wife and myself? "Why me" cannot be answered, nor can it produce anything positive.
In the beginning it felt like cause for a memorial service of sorts, to lament loss of a set of constant human contacts as well as the dear departed paycheck. Next came the wholehearted effort towards the job search against a backdrop of recession and the reality that on a resume it is impossible to camoflage age if you want to portray depth or breadth of experience.
Within this context came the realization that effort has be focused on both a process and a goal. The goal was obvious, find a job. The process was a mystery after being away from it for over twenty nine years. A statistic was reported on one of the major networks recently that helps put the current unemployment in perspective. The practical number that matters here is 17.3%. That's the number of people without jobs, plus people who have gone from working full time to working part-time (underemployed) , plus people who have stopped looking. How many millions of people that includes is unknown.
That's 17.3% of the workforce that will pay far fewer federal income taxes, far fewer state income taxes, far less sales tax, and may fall behind on property taxes paid on homes. All the while drawing increased transfer payments from multiple levels of government for unemployment. This all adds up to the dollar amount of the "unemployment deficit" related to the current recession. It's magnitude would be interesting to know.
All the above to say this. Unemployment sends ripples throughout the economy that accumlate one on top of the other over time. The job seeker faces a down employment market for some time in to the future as the ripples play out with the length of time the process and goal are required of the job seeker depends on forces that he or she cannot control. The focus required of the newly unemployed is the equivalent of the first day on a new job. Except we are working not for wages but to return to what we know best, careers.
