Reply #116: My 54 year old mother has been unemployed for 2+ years. She has applied for every job in a 30 mile

[Heddi]

radius.

She has a high school diploma and that's it. Prior to being laid off over 2 years ago, she did customer service work. She is disabled enough to not be able to do any kind of physically demanding work but not disabled enough to be considered "disabled" and get disability.

Her unemployment ran out a few months ago. Her boyfriend has a part time job and that's all he can get, he's applied to every job in 30 miles as well.

They only have one car between them. They have about $8 "mad money" at the end of every 2 week paycheck. She has an "extra" $16 a month. Man, she's living large.

At least when she was getting Unemployment she was making about $400 a month, which really helped them.

They have no cable
no internet
no phone...cell or landline. That is very inconvenient with the job search because there's no way for anyone to contact them for jobs.

She has looked in to going back to school for something like medical transcription or something, but she can't afford to go to school. And most schools (I know this because I am a recent Community College student who went back for Nursing), your first semester or quarter of school you have to pay upfront for books and fees, attend for 30 days THEN you get your financial aid check.

She has $16 extra dollars a month....there's no way she could afford the startup fees to go back to school

And the fact that grants won't cover her schoolign, she'd have to take out a loan and there is *NO* guarantee that she'd be any more employable after getting a degree than she is now.

Then there's the transportation issue. The gas cost...they have their gas bill down to the penny so they don't do ANY extra driving because it will fuck up their budget.

She's not lazy. She doesn't enjoy being poor. She has never been on welfare, unemployment EVER in her life until 2 years ago. She has worked from the time she was 14, she has never been unemployed before. Never had foodstamps or WIC or welfare or AIDC when I was growing up.

She's 54, has paid her fair share, and now can't get a fair shake.