Dennis Cauchon, USA Today, July 29, 2009
Dean Canaris, 56, a quality engineer for a Honda automotive supplier, was laid off in April and out the door in 30 minutes with no severance.
Harry Jackson, 55, an airline pilot and supervisor, lost his job in 2007 and, to his surprise, has found it nearly impossible to get another job.
Mark Montgomery, 53, was let go from an Owens Corning insulation factory in April and can’t afford his $575 monthly mortgage payment.
These men from the Columbus, Ohio, area are the unusual new faces of joblessness in this groundbreaking recession: older men cut loose from employment at the peak of their earning power and work experience.
In previous recessions, veteran workers were largely spared the pain of widespread job cutbacks, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Layoffs tended to be concentrated among younger workers: The younger you were, the more likely you were to get fired. Traditional, bread-winning older males—especially white men—were the least vulnerable.
Not so today. Aging Baby Boomers are suffering a harsh employment bust.
{snip}
Jobless rates for men and women older than 55 are at their highest level since the Great Depression, government data show. White men over 55 had a record 6.5% unemployment rate in the second quarter, far above the previous post-Depression high of 5.4% in 1983. The jobless rate for older black men was higher—10.5%—but more than a percentage point below its 1983 peak.
The most remarkable change is in the unemployment rate for black women: 12.2%, far below the historic peak of 20% in 1983. Hispanic unemployment is about 6 percentage points below historic highs, too.
In other words, this recession has shrunk the racial gap in unemployment, largely because white men are doing so much worse than usual.
Those above 55 also are spending more time than ever between jobs. Older workers spend an average 27 weeks between jobs, about five weeks longer than younger workers.
{snip}
But the cocoon of protection that experience once brought has unraveled in this downturn.
“This recession has gone far deeper into layers of society than we’ve seen in the past,” says Nelse Grundvig, an economist at the North Carolina Employment Security Commission. “People losing jobs are increasingly male and increasingly older.”
{snip}
That change is rippling through the economy in troubling ways because older people generally carry greater financial responsibility than younger people.
{snip}
‘What’s wrong with me?’
{snip}
The unemployed older men believe their age and experience works against them, not for them.
“Gray hair is the worst thing you can have when applying for a job,” says John Green, 64, a former technology manager at banks and other corporations.
The men say experience can make them less marketable because employers think they want higher pay. There’s some truth to that.
{snip}
Health care hardship
The need for health insurance is the financial problem that dominates the life of unemployed, older men.
Four of the six men interviewed for this story reported that they or a family member weren’t getting needed medical care because they simply could not afford it.
{snip}
Reinvention at 55
{snip}
Nearly all of these unemployed men have a plan—and a touch of optimism.
Canaris plans to get certification in performance excellence and statistical methods. That will make his quality-control skills more transferrable between industries.
He has leads on jobs in New Hampshire, West Virginia and Ohio. He may end up working for a defense contractor or a truck manufacturer. He has two interviews scheduled.
“All I know is I’m optimistic. I have skills and I’m opening up my range to new possibilities,” he says.
Original article
(Posted on July 30, 2009)
Comments
This is not a hard riddle to solve. Middle aged to older highly skilled white men can be easily replaced with H-1B legal immigrant visa holders, that are younger, have less health care and family demands, and can work like slaves. (Sometimes, fraudulently so, as a Utah bank is now accused of doing.) Black women tend to work in government jobs and other affirmative action positions where laying them off would be bureaucratically difficult.
The Hispanic rate only includes people looking for work and still living in America. A lot of them went home when the construction jobs dried up.
This is why I expect “The Revolution” within the next 3 years!
By “The Revolution” I don’t mean people running around in the streets with guns.
What I mean is a radical change in current political & cultural trends. The continued dispossesion of white males cannot continue forever. Most economists predict no net job growth for the next 4 years, yet family expenses continue to rise. Once the tipping point has been reached, even the most apolitical, self-absorbed and PC-brainwashed White Baby Boomer Male is going to see the light. I mean, when they take away your big screen TV and your bass boat, what else are you gonna do?
If the Republicrats have even an ounce of sense left, they’ll take back Congress in 2010. If not — (my prediction) — so many white men will be disgusted by the Stupid Party that a real Third Party will arise for 2012.
If you care about America, that’s your game plan for the next 3 years: Educate! Agitate! Organize!
Too much clutter that prevents good men, American white men, from getting jobs. That clutter is legal immigration, which we don’t need except for very unique people who can do what practically no American can do(e.g., Einstein) and illegal immigrants. Stop immigration; stop affirmative action, a lot of room is opened up. Not a total solution for unemployment, but these steps would help hundreds of thousands of white men.
“Older White Males Hurt More by This Recession,:
Sorry, but I beg to differ. When this economic tsunami hits again and, then again, even the peon jobs will be in very short supply.
The unemployment rate is estimated at 9.7 before the July figures all come in. If it keeps up at even a lesser rate it could well be almost 11% by the end of the year, officially, and 16 to 18% if all unemployed are counted. That would mean almost 27 million people out of work, a staggering number. But, then again, our present numbers are about 20 million unemployed right now if all those out of work and full-timers working part time until they can find full time, and those who have quit looking, are counted.
The increase in the stock market right now means only the those in the upper income brackets are doing o.k., but that’s a temporary condition. As more people are out of work consumer spending will fall precipitously, and that’s what propels this economy.
Keep in mind, though, that this collapse could wind up having only two classes of people: The very wealthy and the very poor.
The experts; the smarter ones, with the best minds, know what is in store for this country, and it is far from being anything close to a happy face.
Here in the Indianapolis metro area, if you visit a networking club you will see a bunch of gray haired individuals in their 50’s. 90% of those at these clubs are people with 20+ years experience, primarily in areas like IT and manufacturing. Almost everyone there is white. Since Indiana is (or actually was) a manufacturing intensive state, I don’t think the official unemployment numbers reflect the true nature of the problem. Replacing your former $80K job for another one is exceedingly difficult in this area. You don’t come up as “unemployed” if you land a one year 42K temp job with no benefits. Gray hair or a degree with a 1970’s date on it is akin to having “CONVICTED FELON” in 72 point font on your resume.
A lot of these guys have kids in college and a load of bills that one would not normally expect from a young couple in their 20’s. Too many are unwilling to admit that their grown kids need to get out and help pull the wagon for a while since they did it alone for a number of years. Having seen what a quagmire we have in the Middle East, I would not normally recommend them telling junior to join the service to earn his college money. However, it would behoove many of them to get a child or two into an apprenticeship program.
I’m fortunate to have a job for now, but there have been a couple of times when I collected unemployment. I made more on that than a temp job. There are normally a lot of truck driving jobs around but it is very hard on family life and your health. Yes, you can make good money, but you are going to live on the road.
If you even think you are going to be in this type of situation down the road; First get as debt free as possible. Stockpile money and live like a hermit. Look around, there are all sorts of free things to do if you take to time to search. The new truck or Hawaiian Cruise can wait for later. Second, if you have grown children you are supporting, they need to help out. Obviously there is a difference between someone living at home while attending Medical School and the 25 yo philosophy major who hasn’t “found himself”. If you can downsize it, do so. Buy used and save the difference. Barring some major uptick in the economy, we are going to see this for quite some time.
If it took them 20 months into the recession to report that white men are doing worse in the economy, why should we accept their assurances (without facts or even ‘facts’) that white men have done better than average during past recessions?
But this is what the white politicans have been working for all these years!
Do you think this trend is coincidental?
Old white men with solid employment histories are squaresville daddy-o. Today’s businesses want young and colorful (and cheap) employees. How’s the company brochure going to look with a bunch of pictures of middle-aged, white guys? That’s practically begging Jessie Jackson for a lawsuit. Besides, those old greyboys are probably going to want a wage commeasurate with their experience, not to mention (snicker) health and retirement benefits. No way Ofay, we here in big business didn’t spend all that money lobbying our pet politicians for more H1Bs and immigrants just to hire you. Maybe Wal-mart has a greeter position open for ya gramps!
The story of my life. Three years unemployed after thirty years working hard. No job offers. No money left. Got stricken with rheumatoid arthiritis that deformed my left hand in the process because I still had a little unemployment left and that disqualified me from the Mexican Medical insurance that gets handed out to every Latino and their 10 kids around here. I don’t know how it ends.
The United States is going to experience a total collapse and depression like happened in the 1930’s.
The recent economic problems are just a hint of what is going to happen.
As some previous posters have indicated, minimalize yourself to the point where you have no debt if you can or you will lose it all.
This country has been treating White males with disdain for decades. One way of showing that hate is to deny men jobs. There is no better way to castrate a man than to prevent him from working and being productive.
but remember, one of the main goals of the stimulus, according to robert riech, is to make sure that white males DON”t get the stimulus jobs.
Amren readers won’t find this hard to believe, but i can assure you that there are plenty of our elite social engineers who are DELIGHTED over this data, which finally shows we are achieving some bizzare ‘equality’
I was forced to retire at 51 years of age due to contract negotiations. I had 33 years at a steel mill in southwestern Ohio. It was retire or lose part of my pension and insurance benefits. I kept my pension, but have to pay part of my insurance out of my pensions. I have been looking for a job for three years. I would take just about anything. No luck. I’m white, male, and now 54 years of age. In southwestern Ohio, hiring illegals is still a novelty and businesses hire alot of them. Krispy Kreme in Monroe was busted recently and fined. At least we do have Sheriff Richard Jones making some difference. If it weren’t for him, businesses would fire all white workers and hire illegals.
Strange - these white men aren’t whining about “The Man” keeping them down, like the typical black man (or woman) would. They are actually trying to change themselves to fit the situation, which is the essence of character building.
One thing troubling though is the dependence on traditional medicine and its concordant cost. Some, at least, could benefit from alternative, nutrition based medicine.
Oh yeah - the one guy is eating healthier now that he has less money coming in. Didn’t we have an article here a week or so ago saying the “poor” can’t afford healthy food?
Unemployment rising among older white men means the meaningful parts of the economy are collapsing. The low-skill service jobs that employ women “of color” won’t collapse till the real economy does. The make work jobs the government creates for otherwise unemployable blacks will never disappear; that is until the federal government goes bankrupt which it seems set on doing.
I am too embarassed to write my story. I was a sucker who had ideals. My private office was invaded and ransacked by a Mexican gang (I am certain) as the downtown area of a main town in Sonoma County (on the sanctuary list) deteriorated. That was 1994! It was a long ride down, but no matter how I tried and where I went, all I found were crooks, (many of them White Church going Christians, too), litigeous people and more and more immigrants making more and more demands. I finally gave up about three years ago. Luckily, my wife and I have some money invested that we barely get by on. Now, even our home is threatened because of losses due to this economic problem that the same people who ruined my professional life caused.
I have been trying to find any sort of work for at least a year now with no luck at all. What I have found is that most job offers are a scam to sell you training that doesn’t guarantee a job, and any government job on any level PROTECTS EVERYONE FROM ME AS A WHITE MAN.
I have been retreated from reverse discrimination all my adult life. Starting at nineteen years of age, when I was turned away from a job at the State Capital in California BECAUSE I WAS WHITE, to the inavailability of a small business loan BECAUSE I WAS WHITE, to communities of people, radical women for example, who flat told me I was boycotted, BECAUSE I WAS A WHITE MALE. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Today, the trend is so pronounced that it is becoming a topic of discussion. But when it does come up, the same old arguments about White Male oppression are brought up and exploited for the purpose of shutting down the conversation.
I read Unemployed WASP’s story and I want to do something. It is time for us to figure out how to help one another as White Men. I don’t want Unemployed WASP to die in the gutter because all we do is post complaints on AMREN, etc. I wonder if AMREN might hold a discussion - perhaps at the convention about raising funds - perhaps even forming a non-profit organization for the purpose of sanctuary for those of us who are being culled out of this society. Or perhaps just a section where one may login and have conversations with others to see if actually grouping up, taking in people by others - might be feasable. We have a spare room as long as we can keep this home and if I could be sure that we could get along, I would not be against helping out a fellow White man. But I would not want a White man with personality disorders or addictions in my home. STill, I know that it is going to require something like this for all of us to survive. It is a military maneuver essentially: fall back and regroup. My prediction is that more and more of us are going to find ourselves in this situation.
Does anyone have anything to say about this idea?
10 — Unemployed WASP wrote at 11:16 PM on July 30:
The story of my life. Three years unemployed after thirty years working hard. No job offers. No money left. Got stricken with rheumatoid arthiritis that deformed my left hand in the process because I still had a little unemployment left and that disqualified me from the Mexican Medical insurance that gets handed out to every Latino and their 10 kids around here. I don’t know how it ends.
Get yourself on a service like Craigslist if you have any ability to tutor math. Ironically, the schools are hiring math teachers with such thick accents that students can’t understand them and the kids tune them out. And they can’t be fired, or not easily. If you can tutor Algebra II, (or even Algebra I) Geometry, Calculus, Trigonometry or any advanced math, get yourself out there. It’s something. Don’t give up. You would be astonished to see how many kids are in junior high or high school and don’t even know their multiplication tables.
14 — Anonymous wrote at 8:31 AM on July 31:
“If it weren’t for him, businesses would fire all white workers and hire illegals.”
This is the core of the problem: White and very often conservative, Church going Republicans think that immigration control is for everyone else but them. We wouldn’t be in this mess if Whites were not greedy and willing to sell out their fellow Whites.
RandyB wrote at 6:09 PM on July 30:
And this is the group that has been the voting base of the Republican party. The still haven’t figured out that the creepy Carl Rove and the Republican party are onenly cheering for their race-replacement at the hands of higher fertilty asians,hispanics, KENYANS,nigerians,gahnians,hndus and sihks.
Older Native Born White Males by continung to vote for the Republican party, have voted for their death and the death of their sons and grandsons.
Numbersusa.com at this late sage of the game won’t even acknowledge that Native Born White Male even exist. Don not send your $$$$$ to Numbersusa and FAIR. Send your $$$ to American Renassaince.
Reverse discrimination aside, this is to be expected (not that I’m in favour of it, it’s just the way things are). The trend for the last several decades has been offshoring high-paying manufacturing and techincal jobs, or else moving foreign workers in to do them here. White males historically fill a disproportionately high number of these jobs, which during an economic downturn are among the first to go. That leaves the low-paying service-sector jobs, which tend to be filled by blacks and Hispanics.
Guys, YOU’VE BEEN OUTLAWED! Forget about ‘finding jobs’. You have to create your own. Think like Russian immigrants do. Band together and help each other. GO UNDERGROUND. That means more a change in mentality than anything else. Be a consultant, networking with other consultants. Think deconstructed workplace. Assume health insurance is out of the question. Alternative medicine for most issues. A thousand families ‘passing the hat’ is more effective than any ‘insurance plan’. Form urban ‘gulches’. Research Gulching. You’ll see what I mean. Things are only going to get worse.
Find out how Jews have survived for thousands of years, and emulate. YOU ARE NOW MEMBERS OF AN OUTLAWED CLASS. That will never change. That means no more quarter-million-dollar weddings for spoiled princess daughters. That means no more spoiled princess daughters. And it means no more of the endless foolishness that has distracted Americans from work and capital accumulation.
Above all, this means that we have to work together, recognize each other, and secretly, independent of formal organizations (which are illegal), help each other. America and its institutions are as good as gone. We only have each other.
I quit buying the local paper because they outsourced their jobs to companies overseas, and let the local people go, who were doing those jobs. I see no reason to keep buying the paper when my money isn’t helping people here who will spend that money here.
http://www.newsmax.com/politics/us_obama_economy/2009/08/01/242728.html
How does this latest tripe from the Kenyan imposter miss the mark? Let me count the ways:
· Not one word about bringing American jobs back to America (a simple tariff on Chinese made goods would do the trick).
· He forgets that Americans already has the best-educated, highest-skilled workers in the world (this is Obama speak for importing more foreign workers).
· He jabbers on about American innovation knowing full well that all American intellectual property is automatically pirated by the Chinese.
· He talks about “rescuing this economy” when it was his administration and the congress that sank it in the first place.
I am a white professional in a job that is supposedly in demand and I was laid off years ago.
My brother said his place of employ was swarmed with foreign workers two years before being laid off. He is a semi-professional.
I can easily count ten people I know laid off from professions.
I am certain that this war expansion into Afgahnistan is to take young adults out of the job market and make the employment stats look better.
Typo correction to previous.60,000 U.S. troops and 29,000 allies from European countries.
More white males hurt by the recession ? I could have have told you that in 1973 when I got out of the service . Obviously things haven’t changed much and I guess I have a simplistic view of things too . But these facts I know ; 1970 census-appx-205 million , 1979-US achieves Zero Population Growth , 2000 census- over 300 million .So where did the extra 100 million come from ? Immigrants , and most of them non-Anglo European thanks to the ‘65 Immigration Bill . It gives them preference coming in and if I am correct , gives them preference in competing with real Americans for jobs (please correct me if I am wrong ).If you bring in 100 million more immigrants , then you’ve got to have 100 million more jobs . If the economy sours and you lose millions of jobs and real Americans are unemployed while said immigrants are still employed , you’ve got to know that this situation is not what the Founding Fathers had intended .All of this insanity thanks to the liberals .It’s got to be a conspiracy or just plain stupidity one .
Soon we will be having a janitor from mexico flying the space schuttle.Just show him what buttons he needs to push and off he goes.He will do it for five dollars an hour and would be a lot more fun to watch than a qualified pilot.
Whiteplight, I think your idea is a splendid one. What you’re suggesting is not too different from that of Promise Keepers…except that it would have real, material goals, rather than vague ideological goals.
And I’d frankly call it a self-help, advocacy, and support group/convention for displaced white men. Then, any negative publicity thrown its way would backfire, and become FREE PUBLICITY.
Since we’re being demonized by everybody, including the churches our foreFATHERS built, and the universities our foreFATHERS built, it’s time to turn our backs on all those who fail to appreciate us, and help ourselves.
#4 feller, says stop illegal immigration and affirmative action and many jobs would open up, etc.
Yes, that would be a partial but good solution to the unemployment. The problem is, you are still thinking of the America that was united by assimilation, language, and some degree of patriotism, the pre-1965 America. That America is dead.
The way that the political and business elite, who could bring about the change you mention, look at the U.S. today, however, is as an “economic zone”. They don’t think of it as a place with people that have needs and dreams and ideals. Those considerations are only brought up by politicians during election time. Besides, many of these people have homes in other countries that they are quite happy to live in.
Even “American” movie stars, feel no strict loyalty to America, so many of them live abroad. What all of these folks have in common is that their interest in America ends, when the profits end. Americans, to these types, are not a factor in their lives or at most a very small one. The sanctioned greed and criminality of Wall Street, the leftists sixty plus years of social engineering, and conservative white America’s almost pathological apathy to it all, has done its work.
