A little about me

So, now that I've vented my frustration with the tax deal, the GOP, and the completely dysfunctional Congress; I thought I should explain why I started this blog.

As I mentioned, I'm a 99er. I was laid off in January 2008 from a data entry job at a local wire mill. I wasn't earning all that much there, but combined with my husband's disability income, it was enough for us to live on. We kept the bills paid, ate out once in a while, and could afford to take trips to NY or CT for visits with family fairly often. Our only debt was our car loan. We used debit cards for everything, so we never got in trouble with credit card interest. We are renters, so we never had anything to fear from the mortgage crisis or the housing bust. We didn't have any investments, so the fall of the stock market did not affect us either. In fact, the only thing that ever gave us pause was $4 gas, but we managed even then.

Maybe it wasn't the "American dream" - but it was certainly good enough for us. We had all we needed (if not everything we wanted), and we were comfortable with the way things were. Then I lost my job.

I probably should have seen it coming. My primary role at work was tracking the performance of the mill workers by entering the production numbers from each worker's daily tracking sheet on each shift into the database and then running the reports. Primarily this was used as a tool for performance improvement, and the worker's performance averages determined their raise at their next review.

In the month or so prior to my being laid off, there were less and less sheets, and less production on each sheet. It wasn't that the workers were slowing down though - it was that the mill was not getting enough orders to run a full shift. That's never a good sign.

Since then, many other mills, factories and other "blue collar" businesses (the primary type of employment in this part of PA) have either cut shifts or shut down completely. The unemployment rate in Pennsylvania is around 8.8% right now (which, of course, only counts those still able to get unemployment benefits). It's not over either - not by a long shot. Just last night there was a segment on the local news about another company that is closing it's doors, leaving a couple hundred more Pennsylvanians out of work.

In a way, though, the workers at that facility are the lucky ones. Thanks to the tax deal, they will be guaranteed at least 13 months of unemployment benefits - and the way things are here in PA, they are likely to need every one of those months. But what happens to them when those 13 months are over? What happens to all those who still have some tiers of unemployment left, but will become 99ers long before those 13 months end? And what happens to all those like me, who already used up their 99 weeks, but still can't find a job - not for lack of effort or will, but because there are no jobs to be found?

I may be late to the game, as there are many 99ers who have been without unemployment benefits for many months already. But I wanted to document this journey I am embarking on, in part because so many people are clueless about what the 99ers are facing, and in part because I still hold on to one small hope...

The hope is that maybe someone in DC or the media will read what will be documented here, and perhaps it will nag at their conscience just enough that they might actually champion the 99ers instead of treating us like an embarrassment they'd rather not be reminded of.

I have news for the folks in Washington and those in the media who have stopped talking about us as well. We are not going away. We are at least 4 million strong, and our numbers grow every week as more and more of the unemployed max out their 99 weeks of benefits. We may be poor, but we have no intention of being silent!!