First Person: How I feed my family without a job

Five million Americans are among the long-term unemployed--those without a job for 27 weeks or longer--according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 7.3 million are looking for work, while the unemployment rate sits at 7.9 percent. Numbers aside, individual stories illustrate how America is affected. To see how joblessness hits home, Yahoo News asked unemployed workers to share their job-hunting stories. Here's one.

FIRST PERSON | It should be easy for me to find a job working in an office. I have 31 years of experience with more than 15 years as an office manager in the manufacturing and construction industries. I have excellent references and pride myself on my accounting, computer and people skills.

When President Obama took office, the construction industry dried up and manufacturing continued to migrate overseas. Plants and factories halted their multimillion dollar expansions and many have downsized or closed, and I am afraid things will only get worse as Obamacare and the fiscal cliff hangs over the head of everyone and hits small businesses particularly hard.

I have tried to switch industries, putting in close to 100 applications for any type of office work that I can find, including entry-level, when there was an opening. I received only a handful of interviews and was told that the company "cannot afford to pay you what you are worth," even when I practically beg for minimum wage.

I have three adult children. Currently, only one of them is employed and his job has scaled back to where he only works two weeks a month. My youngest son has moved to Georgia to his brother's in his efforts to find decent employment. My 25-year-old daughter is living at home and also unemployed. My daughter and I have turned our focus to saving money rather than job hunting when there are no real jobs to be had.

My husband has been our financial savior. He took the plunge and opened his own business with a partner. Their company specializes in food-grade process piping and the United States still needs to eat. Thus, he has managed to keep everything going for our family by helping the remaining plants maintain their facilities. It is terrifying to hear stories like Hostess shutting down. I cannot help but wonder if other food-process plants may be forced to do the same thing and our last hope of surviving this economy will literally go down the pipes.

My daughter and I help out however we can. Last spring we planted a huge garden and were able to bring in about $55 per week by selling our produce at the local farmer's market. We have 20 head of cattle and I have been working trying to break some horses to try to increase the ranch's income to a breakeven point. By raising our own beef and vegetables, our efforts have slashed our grocery bill by nearly 60 percent and thus we are able to hang on a little longer.

I have been unemployed for four long years in New Mexico and it is depressing to think it will be another four years before I can even hope that jobs will return.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-person-feed-family-without-job-182200997--finance.html

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