Long-term unemployment in the United States

According to an article that ran in the Washington Post at the end of September, 2013, some 4.1 million people in the United States had been unemployed for longer than 27 weeks.  These people are now known as "long-term unemployed."  On Dec. 2, USA Today, using a slightly different standard (6 months rather than 27 weeks) gave the same figure for "long-term unemployed," and noted that many of them had also lost their ability to purchase food stamps on Nov. 1 when that program was cut back.

On Dec. 28, at least a quarter of these long-term jobless will lose their unemployment benefits unless Congress takes action to extend existing programs.  And nearly a million more are slated lose them between January and March.

What will happen to these people?

In "Domino," our unemployed hero tries pawning the family's jewelry.

Well, one of the first things that happens is you try to get help from other family members, and from close friends.  But if you've been out of work for six months or more, chances are that you will already have gone that route and there won't be much help available.

Next thing is you pawn the family's jewelry, take whatever odd job you can find, and try to downsize, but again, you've probably already done all of those things.

Next thing that can easily happen is - you become homeless.

And you become part of an increasingly vicious cycle.  If you're homeless, it's much harder to get a job.  Harder for you to spruce yourself up for a job interview.  Harder for you to have an address to give to a potential employer.  Harder for you to afford a cell phone so that a potential employer can contact you for an interview.

And harder for you to have the frame of mind you need, when and if you can line up a job interview.

Is it right for us to simply push these people, and this problem, aside?  I think not.

And that is the point of my film Domino:  Caught in the Crisis.  We need to really understand what these people are going through, so that we will help find solutions.  It is morally, socially, and economically wrong to throw in the towel on millions of our fellow citizens, on millions of our fellow human beings.