Editor, The Herald:

I am writing this letter to ask why more people in this country are not taking issue with the current economic situation we find ourselves embroiled in, with no visible end in sight. Unemployment is higher than it has ever been since The Depression, if we were being told the truth. Instead, we are led to believe that as a nation we are not hemorraging jobs anymore, but instead we have reached a plateau. The truth is that the long-term unemployed who are no longer eligible to collect unemployment are no longer counted; because they have become so ambivalent and jaded with their job prospects they have stopped looking. This undercounting is excluding a large segment of the unemployed population that if properly inspired could become a political force to be reckoned with, or a potential powder keg if they are continuously ignored.

In addition to this situation, many are currently underemployed, or working part-time at a job that they are vastly overqualified for, just to be able to establish and maintain an employment history and they are no longer counted as well. The United States Department of Labor has even stated, following their own investigation, that the long-term unemployed are being turned away by employers for jobs they are clearly qualified for, which establishes that the long-term unemployed are being stigmatized by potential employers as undesirables. Some are moving in with family or friends as they become displaced just to have a place to live and pool their limited resources. Instead of addressing the current situation our government has opted to bail out the corporations that brought about this economic debacle. These same corporations were allowed to prosper with little or no government oversight where they created a false sense of economic growth by creating instruments of security that were anything but secure. These corporations should have been allowed to fail. Instead, they are allowed to keep their financial windfalls and benefit from a taxpayer-funded bailout. Taxpayers now find themselves mired not only with their own debts but the debts incurred when our elected government decided to assume the debts of corporations that created this economic and financial crisis that will haunt future generations of Americans.

Peter Charneco

Keysville