They were left out of the latest unemployment rate, as they are every month: millions of hidden casualties of the Great Recession who are not counted in the rate because they have stopped looking for work.
But that does not mean these discouraged Americans do not want to be employed. As interviews with several of them demonstrate, many desperately long for a job, but their inability to find one has made them perhaps the ultimate embodiment of pessimism as this recession wears on.
Some have halted their job searches out of sheer frustration. Others have decided it makes more sense to become stay-at-home fathers or mothers, or to go back to school, until the job market improves. Still others have chosen to retire for now and have begun collecting Social Security or disability benefits, for which claims have surged.
Rick Alexander, a master carpenter in Florida who has given up searching after months of effort, said the disappointment eventually became unbearable.
I’m in the same boat as these people. We relocated from Texas to Missouri last summer so that my wife could care for her father. I left a very good job, thinking I’d find something in my field (I’m a librarian and I also have second MA and can teach college level philosophy). But it’s been over a year and I can’t find anything. (Not to mention no thanks from the father in law: no good deed goes unpunished.) I’ve long since lowered and broadened my expectations but that hasn’t made any difference. Fortunately my wife has a good, secure job and the kids like it here. I’m a stay at home dad now, but I still apply for anything and everything I can.