Unemployment - What You'll Never See in the Headlines

We hear the unemployment rates quite frequently. While they are important, they aren't the whole story. What we don't ever hear about is the number of people who indeed have no job or source of income, but don't qualify for unemployment. I'm not talking about the people who don't qualify because they haven't worked, but the people who don't qualify despite the fact that they HAVE worked.

My husband and I own and run a small business. He started the business in his backyard long before we met. He started with a cement mixer that he made himself. He couldn't afford to buy one. He lived with his parents at the time, in an 800 square foot house, with his now ex-wife and 2 children. Two "bedrooms" and 1 bathroom, build in the early 1920's, and literally falling apart. He saw a need that he could fill. He started making precast concrete products to sell to other precasters, as they could hardly fill their increasing demands with the equipment, space, and people they had. The demand for our products continued to grow until summer of 2008.

We are a small corporation, and we are the only officers of the company. Most people don't know that corporate officers, until January 2009 did not have the option of paying into state unemployment in our state, and thus, were not eligible to receive benefits when their job no longer existed. We received a letter in December 2008 letting us know that we could now opt-in and have money taken from our checks, and from the company, and that we would be able to receive unemployment in the future should the need arise, if we met certain criteria. As with everything in life, there was a catch, to qualify for unemployment, you must have been employed for the previous 4 quarters, not only employed, but paying into unemployment. We knew in January when we elected to pay in, that we would not qualify until January 2010.

We also knew in January 2009, that we may well be out of business long before 2010. We don't hear about people like us in the news. There are no real statistics. We have worked more than 100 hours some weeks, on average we each work 70+ hours a week. We haven't been able to pay ourselves regularly since the beginning of this year. We opted to try to retain key employees instead, as well as their benefits. These are people we have had with us for many years, some more than 10 years. We didn't want to lay them off. We eventually had to, but a few still come in, knowing they won't see a paycheck, because they don't want to see our business go. It's an awful position to be in, on both sides. While my husband and I have been receiving some pay, it isn't nearly enough to get by. We don't have the luxury of receiving unemployment to help make ends meet.

We weren't irresponsible home buyers. When we purchased our home and took out a loan, the monthly payment was 1/8th of our monthly take home pay. We were hardly irresponsible, yet I worry every day about foreclosure. We are still working at our business, so we can't go get jobs elsewhere. If we decide to file bankruptcy for the business, we don't just wake up the next day able to go work for someone else, nor do we get to keep any of our personal assets. Many small businesses in this country are closing their doors, so I imagine we are not alone. But you don't hear about people like us in the news, we don't see any statistics or numbers that represent people like us. I wouldn't care about losing my home if it weren't for my children. I can't stand the thought of my children losing their home. So there you have it, just a brief introduction to who I am, what my situation is, and where I'm coming from. I would love to hear from other small business owners facing similar problems.