quotations about unemployment
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' much-followed unemployment rate only tracks individuals who don't have a job and have actively looked for work in the last four weeks. So although the rate moved down in May, several analysts think this was because many Americans simply stopped looking for work.
ANDREW SOERGEL
"Long-Term Unemployment: The Economy's 'Secret Cancer'", U.S. News & World Report, June 9, 2016
Many retail stores still pay salespeople based on commission, even though more and more shoppers go to the brick-and-mortar establishments just to look, and then buy online. An empowered workforce would be able to demand a cut of that revenue. But in a world where unemployment is a perpetual threat and employers hold all the power, workers are stuck taking whatever offer they can get.
JEFF SPROSS
"What caused the retail apocalypse?", The Week, May 9, 2017
We know that a person who is unemployed is 2.4 times more likely to be using drugs (and) common sense would tell us that at least a part -- likely a very substantial part -- of their unemployment is because of their drug use.
CHRISTIAN PORTER
"Budget 2017: crackdown in jobless hot spots flush with drugs", The Australian, May 11, 2017
There is a stigma attached to unemployment that can be dangerous because I don't think it would take much for it to create a potentially irreversible self-hatred. I fill my days with routines that involve exercise, cleaning, job applications and writing and certainly no television or leisure time during work hours; I'm strict on that. I don't claim welfare of any kind, because apart from anything else I am far too proud, another one of my failings. I am not what the unemployed stereotype looks like but I am unquestionably unemployed and I'm struggling mentally, emotionally and financially every day. I often barely recognise myself.
VICKI NASH
"I'm unemployed and ashamed. The idea that people don't want to work is a ridiculous myth", The Guardian, March 21, 2017
The experience of joblessness can be devastating to the individual in question, but it also affects those around them. Family and friends of the unemployed are typically affected, of course, but the spillover effects go even further. High levels of unemployment typically heighten people's sense of job insecurity, and negatively affect the happiness even of those who are still in employment.
JAN-EMMANUEL DE NEVE & GEORGE WARD
"Does Work Make You Happy? Evidence from the World Happiness Report", Harvard Business Review, March 20, 2017
I've seen weapons of mass destruction in our cities. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness, a weapon of mass destruction, racism, a weapon of mass destruction, fear, a weapon of mass destruction. We must disarm these weapons.
DENNIS KUCINICH
speech to Democratic National Convention, July 28, 2004