Causes of Unemployment

Unemployment & How It Effects Society

Final Project Towards the end of the Bush administration and the beginning of the Obama administration, unemployment began to peak, and eventually was at an all time high since the Great Depression. Unemployment affects individuals as well as society as a whole. It affects the outlook of the country; the families that help build the nation, and the progress of said nation. Unemployment is said to create a ripple effect, it is the headline factor that leads to many other unraveling structures in society. An example of this is crime rate, life expectancy, even marriage rate. These attributes usually contribute to the nations outlook, but when these are negative, as they are now, the nation is looked at with less value. The broad societal view of unemployment is completely negative. “Obama administration's historic extension of unemployment benefits to two years, fully 50 percent longer in duration than the prior record in the 1970s…” (Einhorn, p.22). This means Obama has changed the package of unemployment benefits for two years, and this hasn’t been changed since the 1970’s, which shows not only is our President effective, but how in need our society is. This has affected country in a broad sense like a bad economy and negative political outlook.

Obama’s time in office has been criticized mostly because of the unemployment rate. It reached it’s highest peak during the beginning of his term for presidency. Now other nations look down on our the United States because of this issue. The economy is also another reason for the President’s negative feedback. This is can all relate to the unemployment. “As unemployment rises, pressure for a fair deal for the jobless will grow” (Eaton, pg. 12). This is an issue because when the nations leader looks bad , every decision he makes looks bad.

Unemployment takes a big chunk out of the nations spending. When people can not pay , taxes rise sky high , to pay the unemployment benefits. This is in large part to our expanding nations' deficit. Since consumers are not buying everything that they wanted , their standard of living changes consumers are insecure about their job they aren't going to spend a lot of money on buying things, instead they will save their money. This has a crippling effect to our economy.

This also causes for government uprisings. Simply put , more taxes equal more tension between the people and the government. Now the people will scrutinize whatever the decision is being made for the country because of the increased taxes. People feel as though it is unjust the way the government is treating them , when most likely the government is just trying to survive. With the lack of the support of its own people , other countries are far more unlikely to enjoy this country.
The tension doesn't end with the government , it trickles down between the people against themselves. People fight amoungst another over employment and/or employment oppurtunites. These people have to feed their families and with jobs seeming impossible to get – people get extremely competitive. They forget that everyone is going through something and turn on eachother. This can also be blamed on the fact that people stop social gatherings ,because of the expense, which in turn effects how people treat eachother. They have forgotten social skills and this is all in root of unemployment.

Also we get people who waste their skills on common jobs because the jobs that they went to school for are unavailable. They would either need more experience or more money to travel to a different location. So they get jobs that are readily available instead of jobs that they put forth their education in. This actually worsens their skills, and although they may work at a place they will be losing what they learned as time goes by. The crime rate has climbed because of the lack of jobs and people have families to provide for. People are not just stealing because of bad morals, but because they have lost a job and they have a family to provide for. Families are less likely to succeed because of the stress of unemployment. The broken homes often leads up to crime or failed education. Kids rebelling because of failed family relationships, and also some maybe pushed to find work to help support their family , rather making education a priority.

Unemployment effects society in various ways. Mental unsuitability, suicide, and an unshakable stigma. This can even effect home life, this is especially where you see high rates of divorce. When money becomes an issue in any relationship , there will always be some type of tension. Especially when the roles in the household actually reverse , and example of this is when a man and women first meet – man has high paying job and wife doesn't, well then he gets laid off and now she's making all the money. This can lead to the man feeling emasculated and eventually drifting away from the relationship. This will defiently effect the children and the way they see house values and relationships , which can lead to dropping of grades or not attending school at all. Alot of high school students these days are not going to college because they see people graduating and still unemployed. This leads to a lack of goals and realistic views of life.

When someone is feeling exceptionally great at a job and then they are 'laid-off' or fired, it causes a rift in their self esteem and the way they may see themselves. This is an on-going is problem seen everyday with those who have gotten fired. Some even retaliate at their previous employer because they have reached a mental breaking point. No one wants to be labeled unemployed, because unemployed usually makes other people think they didn't want to work. But the issue isn't not wanting to work, it's about having someone hire them. Alot of people lose their homes because they can not pay for the replacement of damages due to crime or just pay their original mortgage note. It seemingly is impossible to keep up with the bills when there is no source of income. They also make unhealthy choices to their lifestyle to avoid feeling unaccomplished in life. This abuse of unhealthy food and susbstance lead to deadly results.
Sadly unemployment can also cause someone too take their life. If someone is working at their dream job, losing it would defiently effect them in a negative way. They often get depressed and some people, even after getting aid, they feel there is no other way out and commit suicide. It's so sad how unemployment can ruin someone's life. I know of a friend who lost his job, got stressed and almost died of depression. He had been working for seventeen years as a molding manager since he was young and now he grown and has family. It was like the only source of bread for his family so he couldn't believe he was going to be layed off. He was stressed out and almost died of depression for losing his source of bread for his family. Unemployment can really also cause you a lot of debts which will lead you to be stressed ,sick and make you make bad decisions in life
Unemployment has increased a lot of crime especially in big cities like New York. There's a lot of crime because people do not have a stable job which helps them to pay everything in their lives such as foods, clothes, so they can not improve their lives. As a result, although something is unlawful, they must do to have money. For example, a father needs to give tuition fees for his child but he is a unemployed; therefore, he steals everyone’s money. This cause more people becoming criminals. Unemployment has also increased a lot of break up of relationships. One of the top five reasons behind divorce or break ups comes down to one major issue which is money. Unfortunately, in our country's economic situation, this problem seems to be increasing. Many people are losing hours at the office, having salaries cut, or simply moving to another category all together: the unemployed. Through the past few months, our country's economic recession has caused many to lose their jobs without hope of finding another one any time soon. Some are even being forced to put their education to the side and accept a job that at one time, they might have been highly over-qualified for.Unemployment does not only affects our business relationships but our personal ones too. I know of one girl I used to work with called Karen,she lost her job last January. Though she had been previously warned that it might come to the company letting her go, Karen, and her family, were devastated to learn the news. Two weeks later, when it seemed like nothing else could go wrong, her husband was let go. While Karen doesn't have a degree but has always worked hard at her job, her husband actually has his Master's degree in his field. Everyone told him 'don't worry. You'll find work! You have a Master's degree.' Unfortunately, this has not been the case. In May, Karen took a job she felt was beneath her and her husband began doing part time work for a hospital.They went through such a hard time in the past few months that they always picked and poked at the other one and not in a loving and fun manner. Instead, they were irritable and frustrated with their situation, unsure of how they were going to pay their bills, they began taking their anger out on each other. Of course, this didn't relieve any sort of stress, nor did it bring about any kind of joy. Instead, Karen and her husband found themselves pulling apart. While finding the part time work has helped the situation some, the problem is still there. Unemployment has led to a lot of difficulties in life and has affected so many innocent people. People have commited suicide and killed others because of loss of jobs and poverty.

References
Columbia University Press. (11/1/2011) Unemployment. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th
Edition; p1-1, 1p
Eaton, George, (2/21/2011) Jobless (and less). New Statesman; Vol. 140 Issue 5041, p12-12, 1p, 1 Graph
Einhorn, Cheryl Strauss (Apr2011) Unemployment -- or Welfare. Commentary; Vol. 131 Issue 4, p22-26, 5p
Gavin, Kevin. (1/10/2011) The recession is over. The real pain starts now. New Statesman; Vol. 140 Issue 5035, p24-27, 4p, 1 Illustration, 2 Graphs
Witt, J. (2011). SOC 2011. (2nd ed.). NY: McGraw-Hill.