Major social consequences of long-term unemployment - Essay Example

Our society is structured in a manner in which an individual must be able to sustain himself and his family. The institution that allows people to accomplish this goal is work. Work can be defined as physical or mental activities directed toward the production or accomplishment of something People from childhood are being slowly prepared for eventually becoming a part of the workforce. Upon graduation from high school many adults elect to go to college to learn new traits and skills that will prepare them for a career.

When a person loses their job it has economic and social consequences. The purpose of this paper is to describe the major social consequences of long term unemployment. Employment along with providing a source of income for the employee it also serves a social purpose. The type of career a person chooses can give that individual a status quo. For examples doctors and lawyers are among the most respected professions in our society. When a person has a job they feel a sense of self-satisfaction knowing they are a part of the national workforce.

When a person loses their job things turn for the worse real fast. First of the person loses the source of income they utilize to sustain their families. The first stage of unemployment starts by going to the unemployment offices to apply for unemployment insurance. Traditionally unemployment insurance covered the worker for up to six months, but during the last couple of years the automatic extensions that the Obama administration approved increased unemployment benefits up to a one year span.

When a person is not able to find work after their unemployment benefits expire the person enters into a new stage of unemployment referred to as long term unemployment. The reasons people don’t find work vary by case, but sometimes it is the person’s own fault for not finding work. People on many occasions are not willing to take any type of job because they desire to continue working in the profession they studied. When things are bad it is imperative for a person to have the humbleness to accept any type of work that comes their way even if it means applying for minimum wage job at a local fast food restaurant.

The fast food industry employs over 3.5 million workers nationwide2. Max Weber had a unique perspective about unemployment. According to Weber and symbolic interaction theories individuals construct their own social construct and perception and they can be subjective in their behavior and therefore can become unemployed even though the actual condition they can get a job in the job market3. Long term unemployment can have a devastating effect on the economic condition of a household. Larger families are exposed to greater risk of suffering because their cost of living expenses are higher.

There are programs such as welfare that can help pay for basic necessity items such as food, but in reality these government programs are not sufficient to pay for all the living expenses of a family. When a person reaches long term unemployment they typically deplete their entire savings. They fall behind on all their credit accounts. This has a devastating long term effect on the person because an individual can lose hundreds of points off their credit score in a few months of time. It may have taken a person years of hard work to build up a solid credit score, but because of long term unemployment the credit score of a person can become a disaster.

Homeowners faced particularly tough dilemmas. A family can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity due to long term unemployment if the bank forecloses on their homes. In 2010 there were approximately 3 million home foreclosures in the United States4. The majority of these cases occurred because the homeowner lost all their income and entered into the category of long term unemployment. Long term unemployment is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone. The incidence of long term unemployment has been on the rise since the start of the recession in 2008.

The average length of unemployment