Even though the 46-year-old mother of five has an accounting certificate and a mind for numbers, prospective employers “don’t so much as look at me because of my age or because of my work gap,” she says, referring to the period of time she’s been unemployed. “It’s always like, ‘OK, thank you, we’ll call you within two weeks.’ Then three weeks go by. And when you call them, they say, ‘Oh, didn’t you get a letter? We’ve found a more suitable candidate.'”
Two years after his release from prison, Travis was still struggling to find full-time, stable employment. He put out applications, but his phone didn’t ring. The odd jobs, like cleaning cooking equipment for restaurants, helped, but after months of relying on his family for support with little to contribute in return, he felt like a bum.
“I wanted to be one of the people who get up and go to work every day without breaking the law and have a quality of life,” he told Monica Potts in a story she wrote for the American Prospect. Yet with no other options in sight, he turned for a time to what he knew to be a reliable source of income — selling drugs in his West Baltimore neighborhood—before finding help.
The stories of Bonita and Travis stories aren’t outliers — more and more Americans are finding themselves relegated to the margins of the economy, despite their best efforts to escape that fate. It breeds hardship and hopelessness, and it also violates a basic tenet of our social contract when temporary setbacks become permanent obstacles. The numbers reflect the extent of that permanence; the longer you’ve been out of work, the harder it is to find it again.
That’s a troubling reality because for most Americans, the path to success isn’t straightforward; it’s punctuated with obstacles and pitfalls. To the immigrant in search of a fresh start, the entrepreneur in pursuit of a new business venture, or the countless families striving for a better tomorrow, it’s the promise of a second chance that animates the American Dream. Many of the Sooners, forty-niners and other pioneers who built our country were running from failures back east.
On Tuesday, President Obama will give his State of the Union address. One key issue he should address is the problem of long-term unemployment. While the unemployment rate has improved, there are many Americans who have fallen off the radar.
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These are just a few examples of how we can begin to replace our policies and practices that double down on disadvantage with ones that restore second chances.
A real second-chance economy will not only benefit those who are shut out of economic citizenship, but will also restore the dynamism and growth to our economy that will create jobs for everyone who wants to work.
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