Cyber Monday and Black Friday are usually joyous signs the holidays are approaching. In truth, Cyber Monday/Black Friday are painful reminders that there will be no Christmas for the 99ers and many will be lucky if they ring in the New Year still breathing.
New research suggests the nation's unemployed are committing suicide at an alarmingly high rate.
So is the recession fueling a suicide epidemic?
Unemployed people are two to three times more likely to commit suicide, researchers estimate, and the risk rises the longer someone remains jobless. That is potentially a very large problem as the recession continues, with 8.6 million Americans out of work for six months or more.
Counties with high unemployment are reporting a dramatic rise in suicides. Macomb County, Michigan, for example, has a 13.7 percent unemployment rate and reported almost 40 percent more suicides in 2009 than in an average year. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) has reported a startling increase in the number of calls, from 13,423 calls in January 2007 to a high of 57,625 calls in August 2009. The toll-free helpline has since been awarded a $1 million federal grant to ramp up its program in high-unemployment regions.
The NSPL estimates that the 2010/2011 suicide rates when finally made public, will show a rise as high as 75%. As a point of fact reference: The suicide rate in the U.S. rose by only 20 percent during the Great Depression.
If you think your friend or family member is showing signs of the "trauma, isolation, and hopelessness" that can push a person "past the breaking point," I urge you seek professional advice on their behalf immediately. I myself receive countless emails of 99ers who cannot take it anymore and want to end their suffering. Over the Thanksgiving holiday week, there was at least one very publicized person named Mark. (Click here to read more)
Over this past weekend, there were massive, frantic searches and attempts to reach 3 more long time 99ers who fell out of communication after leaving cryptic text on social media sites, indicating self destruction was at hand.
Today the members of 99er Facebook groups and PalTalk chat room “Tier 5 to Survive” are clamoring to track down yet two others. Why is it the only ones who even care about these 99ers, so beaten down by Government enforced poverty and Congressional neglect that they choose suicide, are 99ers themselves? Where is the action from our President to attempt to thwart this domestic Social Holocaust? Answer: Conspicuously silent and that silence speaks volumes to millions in the 99er Nation.
NOTE TO OBAMA: When suicide is considered by 99ers, it is often not that these people want to die - it is more that they just cannot take living as they have for so long. Without money and void of all hope. Remember Hope & Change Mr. President? That was your promise when you wanted our votes and it is the failure of Hope that anything will Change which immediately precedes the final act of those who take their own lives.
The White House in their continuing use of social media to reach the masses and appear concerned over poverty in America, recently formed a partnership with Monster.com - collecting questions about employment for the Obama administration on its Facebook page.
The page was open to questions through November 14 after which a selection of questions were presented to the Obama administration for answering. One of the questions selected for the White House to answer involved the 99ers, however the answer only showed how little Austan Goolsbee, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors understands the situation facing the 99ers.
The video can be viewed below. This guy may have said the term '99ers' but even HE does NOT get it. We have been denied the ability to participate in the US economy for going on 9 months now and the extension of UI being considered by the White House DOES NOT include the 99ers!
I say we and everyone in our respective groups bombard Austan Goolsbee, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors to educate him on this issue and/or let him know his double talk does NOT fool us at all!
The Hire Act discussed by Goolsbee in the video expires by year’s end and he does not even mention the TANF which has helped hundreds of thousands return to work that also expired at the end of September. On a personal note, I waited 18 months for my name to come up on the TANF list and 2 weeks before the program expired I received a call from the California EDD office. They congratulated me on making it into the program and apologized that since the funding would expire in a few weeks - they could not assist me at all. Isn’t our Government great? NOT!
1-888-245-0215 - you can get connected to Biden's office - call and ask why the Goolsbee video about extending benefits for the long-term unemployed does not address whether or not the 99ers are being included in Obama's calls for extending UI.
President Obama: as you meet with the Republicans during your fancy dinner tomorrow and cave in on extending those Bush Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, PLEASE try to show strong leadership and do not negotiate away these unnecessary perks for the WEALTHY without at least getting UI extended for exactly as long as you agree to extend tax cuts for the rich - INCLUDING our desperately needed Tier 5. If you do not see to it the 99er Nation gets help now - you know it will never happen in time to save hundreds even thousands of lives, unless more dead poor in America has been the goal all along.....
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