Reply #25: Benefits in general are going away . . .

[DollyM]

My husband has been out of work for 10 months and nearly every job he has interviewed for has had lousy benefits (high premiums for insurance coverage) or none at all. I just interviewed for a "mental health consultant" position with Head Start, which I didn't get but what really bothered me was that the position required a Master's degree, was part time (20 to 20 hours a week) and offered no benefits. You would think that Head Start, an goverment program that prides itself on helping people overcome and get out of poverty (not sure if the statistics actually bear that out but that is another subject . . .) would see the importance of making sure their workers are provided with health insurance, especially since they have went to the expense and time of getting a Master's degree. Yet with this position, just like with every other we have interviewed with or applied for over the last 10 months, they get are getting 50 or 60 or more QUALIFIED people for every position opening. People are so desperate for jobs they will take anything, whether it has benefits or not and employers no this too. One job I actually lost out to a 72 year old man because the company didn't provide health insurance and the last director they had died because she had colon cancer and no health insurance. Since he had Medicare, they hired him instead. No they didn't tell me that but I know he was not as qualified as I was and they made a point of asking me in my interview if I had my own health insurance or some way of getting my own. I think they probably regret hiring this other fellow as he is a real dud but at the time, they choose who they thought would be less of a liability since he had some health care insurance and I didn't. I hope something is done to turn this country around and fast! My husband has three months of extended unemployment coming to him and we have a little bit of retirement saving left to cash in and that is it. I figure we can survive to the first of the year if we are really careful. Then I don't know . . . It makes me angry to think that we both spent all these years in school, getting the education that everyone says is so important and we are competing with hundreds of other desperate people for a handful of jobs.