Jobs program for people trapped in unemployment

 

(CBS News) Meet the new underclass -- the nearly four million Americans who have been unemployed for more than a year. With every additional week out of work, their chances of finding a job dwindle. It turns out that many employers don't want to hire the currently unemployed. Enter Joe Carbone , who is determined to return the American dream to the long-term unemployed in Connecticut. And he's succeeding, one job at a time. How's Carbone doing it? Scott Pelley reports.

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The following script is from "Trapped in Unemployment" which aired on Feb. 19, 2012, and was rebroadcast on August 12, 2012. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Henry Schuster and Rachael Kun, producers.

There's something stubborn about unemployment. Never in the last 60 years has the length of joblessness been as long as it has been recently. Nearly four million people, about a third of the unemployed, have been out of work more than a year. They've been severed from the workforce. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, calls it "a national crisis." To understand what's happening, earlier this year we went so Stamford, Conn., to see an experiment that might just offer a way back for Americans trapped in unemployment.

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Discrimination against the unemployed »

Frank O'Neill: They started to go through round after round of layoffs. And I got caught in one of the layoffs there.

The Great Recession arrived early for Frank O'Neill.

Frank O'Neill: It was a cold day in February.

It was February 2008. O'Neill was a credit consultant for an IT company.

Scott Pelley: What happened?

O'Neill: They called me into the vice president's office. And he basically told me that they were having some financial difficulty and told me that my last day was gonna be that day. I got a small little severance out of it and was off into the world of the unemployed.

Pelley: What have the last three years been like for you?

O'Neill: You have those moments where you're the only one in the house and you're sitting in front of the computer looking for a job and you go, "When's this ever gonna break for me?"

Pelley: How many people signed up for unemployment? Everybody.

No one we met in Stamford expected to be out of work this long.

Pelley: How many have run to the end of the unemployment benefits? Everyone.

Those unemployment benefits end after 99 weeks. These folks have been out of work two years, three, even four. They're college educated professionals in their forties or fifties; people who thought their company would take them all the way to retirement.

Pelley: Vernon?

Vernon Downes: I was very angry. I was very bitter. I was fed up with society, the corporate world, the lies, deceit, the greed.

They don't look it, but they've fallen out of the middle class. Turned in cars, gone on food stamps, taken kids out of college and faced foreclosure. Now, they've pinned their last hopes on Joe Carbone.

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[ns1958]

This appears to be a wonderful program. Unfortunately there are not enough of these programs around and those that operate usually have limited financial backing. I reside in Connecticut and have inquired about this program. There is a screening process for candidates. I am told their office is now flooded with applicants. I only wish this was a bigger program.

[lastgasp]

As someone who in his wildest dreams never thought he would be in this position I find many of your comments so comforting. I am 59 years old and am experiencing what so many others have articulated. Having a father and mother who had 6th and 8th grade educations respectively, I was determined to create a better life for my family (and succeeded) by getting my college degree. My family unit ended due to divorce and I now have nothing. Even after my father committed suicide, while I was home on Christmas vacation from college, I returned to college after a brief break and over the course of approximately 10 years obtained my four year college degree taking classes at night while married with children and working full-time. Used to be "work ethic" meant something but it seems to have lost its significance. As recently as 2008 I worked 6 and 7 days a week voluntarily and received no extra pay since I was a salaried employee. We are expressing a great deal of concern over our plight and justifiably so. My concern is not only for myself but what do my children and grandchildren have awaiting them.

We know what role the financial industry played in decimating our economy in 2008 and they who are responsible should hang their heads in shame. I read the book "Too Big To Fail" and what an eye opener into the greed of that industry. Still hard to believe no one has been indicted.

CEO's want to tell us how they are doing what they do to increase shareholder value. Aren't many of us shareholders? What good is it if we can't purchase goods or we have to sell our shares just to subsist?

There is "Maslow's hierarchy of needs". From observing the news, I dare say people are doing things to survive they never thought they would do.

[wendy1847]

I was a big believer in the many different agencies that say they will get an older worker a job. Sure they will. Here in Idaho they will get you a job....3 hours a day....5 days a week.....$7.25 per hour. That will pay rent!

[unt2prodev]

The most disturbing part of this story was the social caste system that claims Linkedin will make perfectly accredited potential employees *irrelevant* to employers. Gated media is a reflection of the problems in our society, not the solutions. Ask the masked anonymous groups responsible for cyber-crime or the masked nazis marching in the streets of Germany. You're real or you're not. No amount of bogus, social press changes reality.

[unt2prodev]

The most disturbing part of this story was the social caste system that claims Linkedin will make perfectly accredited potential employees *irrelevant* to employers. Gated media is a reflection of the problems in our society, not the solutions. Ask the masked anonymous groups responsible for cyber-crime or the masked nazis marching in the streets of Germany. You're real or you're not. No amount of bogus, social press changes reality.

[DrGeneNelson]

As a 60 year old unemployed American citizen natural science Ph.D., I have been through two "retraining" programs. Each of them yielded about 18 months of employment. A huge scam is perpetrated on American workers, who like myself incurred direct and opportunity costs in earning an advanced degree. In my case, the costs totaled about 1/2 million dollars. I have had to keep a secret that I have a Ph.D. with some employers to obtain employment.

Compare this with the case of a foreign national from the developing world who earns a Ph.D. at an American university - and whose education receives substantial taxpayer subsidies. The foreigner is preferentially hired because they are less expensive as a consequence of the huge loopholes designed into the visa program - and the employer controls the terms of their visa as they are subject to almost immediate deportation if their position is cut. Federal policy makers at the National Science Foundation (NSF) thought pushing out Americans and substituting "fresh young blood" was a good policy idea in the late 1980s. The NSF continues to advocate for maintenance and expansion of the controversial H-1B Visa program.

Viewers of 60 minutes probably aren't aware of government-sanctioned foreign hiring preference programs such as the controversial H-1B Visa, which are the root cause of the unemployment of so many talented and experienced American citizen technical professionals. Employers prefer to hire imported "fresh young blood" rather than hiring Americans because the foreign worker labors under conditions akin to indentured servitude. Colleges and universities began the scam in 1976 with the passage of the obscure "Eilberg Amendment" that allowed them to bypass Americans and hire unlimited numbers of foreign professors and researchers. The private sector cited the Eilberg Amendment as legislative precedent for creating the H-1B Visa in 1990.

"Project Censored" identified the H-1B Visa program as a heavily censored news story twice. (Media elites save gobs of money via the program.)

Search by title for the PDF versions of these 3 reports to learn more: "How Record Immigration Levels Robbed American High-Tech Workers of $10 Trillion," "The Greedy Gates Immigration Gambit" and "Career Destruction Factories."

Expanding "retraining" programs only deals with the symptoms, and as CBS News correctly notes, are no guarantee of re-employment. Americans may use the no-cost tools at organizations such as NumbersUSA dot com, CAPS dot org, and FAIRUS dot org to press our political leaders to end the corruption and put Americans back to work.

[LACarlson]

This story is wonderful and hopeful for the following reasons; Joe Carbone is an exception in the workforce setting. He's compassionate and he's correct. We as a country should be outraged that so many relevant people in THIS country are out of work. The reality is most people with jobs don't care about people who don't have jobs.
As a long-term unemployed woman in my 40s I have years of admin. experience, a degree and I understand how it feels not be considered for jobs that I'm usually over-qualified for and the ones that I can do but am not currently working in I'm not considered for either.
Here in St. Paul, MN I was told funding for the internship program was cut and have been regularly told by my employment counselor I have so many qualifications she doesn't know how to help me and that I can do her job.
If Joe Carbone can raise the funds to get this type of program in place; why aren't States looking at this successful program as a model to REALLY help the unemployed?
This story gave me hope; thank you Joe Carbone for being the exception. It really does matter.

[CaptainSmollett]

Let's be clear: In a global economy, businesses operate anywhere they please. Jobs will move to where they are most efficiently performed. That has nothing to do with patriotism, it is just a fact of life that businesses must be internationally competitive to survive. So, if jobs are leaving the U.S., it is because WE as a nation are driving them away - WE have failed to produce a business environment favorable to retain and attract jobs, and it has gotten much worse under Obama. It is the Federal Government's responsibility, and it has failed. Higher taxes, burdensome regulation, increased cost of social programs, stronger unions, government interference, and uncertainty....all stiffle job retention and growth.

[concernForAll]

I watched this segment with great interest. I was laid off from my job In July of 2007 but was fortunate to have a part time job in the fast food industry at the time. That became my only job and I have been at it ever since. I was 55 years old on the date of my lay off. I am now coming up on my 62nd birthday and have never felt so unsure about the future. Foreclosure and bankruptcy are now a part of our history and, for the last few years, all I hear out of Washington is out-and-out war among our so called leaders. Partisan politics seems to be little more than a school yard brawl where all the punches are thrown at the (once) working people of this country and no one is doing the job of running the country. Lobbyists have bought and paid for legislation and deregulation that allowed the collapse and preferential treatment of various industries. The banking industry has not learned its lesson (e.g., Jamie Dimon, MF Global, the LIBOR manipulation). Even after the implosion of the economy and the bailouts, did the financial community do anything to stimulate the economy by increasing lending to businesses? No, they did not. They just got bigger bonuses because of the extra capital that the bailouts provided. Jamie Dimon has the gall to blame the consumers for the failed economy (because of finger pointing).

At the center of this whole thing, there is a cause that I have yet to hear mentioned; money. Money decides everything. No jobs? There isn't enough money to hire employees. No health care? Ditto. We as a society are so concerned about the health and longevity of business that we have placed it above human life. What is the price for a life? This is not a rhetorical question. This is a valid, as well as answered, question. Ask your insurance company. They will be able to tell you an exact figure.

How did we evolve into this cesspool of inhumanity? How did we ever change from one person one vote to one dollar one vote? How is it that we the people vote "public servants" into office, pay them a salary, and then allow them to accept money of any kind or amount from lobbyists and then expect them to do what is in our best interests? Whether it is Romney, Obama, or Joe the plumber, the outcome will be the same. We are lemmings looking for some fool to lead the rest of us fools over the cliff. Get rid of the money completely and turn life over to the people. Didn't Thomas Jefferson say that government should be rebuilt periodically? If we are going to listen to what the founding fathers say, don't just pick and choose what suits your own personal gain, listen to the whole thing.

We all have a role in this world. We all have basic needs in this world. Air, food, water, shelter, clothing, and a little dignity are all it takes to survive. Notice there is no money in that list. All money does is tell us who is better than us. If you remove money from the equation, the only ones that will miss it are the 1%. It does nothing but feed the greed of the human animal. We need to bring together the brilliant minds of this world and at least look at the possibility of alternatives. This is a problem that will take generations to fix. If we let it fix itself, we won't be very happy with the outcome, I'm afraid.

When I hear people like James W. Paulsen of Wells Capital Management that "it's time to let the economy take care of itself" (Somer, 2012), I have to wonder if that's even possible. The financial CEOs and republicans say to leave it alone but do you honestly think that the CEOs or anyone with a shot at a large pile of money will leave it alone? Ever hear of derivatives? Ever hear of hedging your bets? Ever hear of AIG? How about the money paid into Social Security since its inception? People are greedy and selfish. They will not leave such a huge pile of money untouched. If greed is a cancer, money is the tumor.

Works Cited
Somer, J. (2012, August 4). Two Central Banks and the Sound of Silence. Retrieved August 13, 2012, from The New York Times, Your Money: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/your-money/two-central-banks-and-the-sound-of-silence-strategies.html

[Thaigold]

As a retired expatiate American these stories of the unemployed break my heart. My entire working life revolved around social intercourse ... especially in sales; sales training, and the management thereof. It was a life devoted to meeting objectives and assuring those under me made their quotas also. Because of my experience; my choice of careers - I was no stranger to unemployment.

Very early on, I came to the realization that mastering the skill of finding and securing new management and supervisory positions was going to be part and parcel of my "business package."
In short, I became an expert in selling myself in the market place.

In California, a mutual friend was engaged in the motivational business seminar field. Several times I was called upon to talk on the subject of job security and the secrets and art of finding work in hard times. Once I find the proper medium, I really want to share these chips and bits of business psychology with my American friends...especially those over 45-years of age.

Suggestions on how to accomplish these ends are welcomed.