Unemployment Hits Home: Beyond the Financial Cost of Job Loss

That's 2,600,000 employees, workers, family members, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, heads of households, real flesh and blood human beings without their normal income.

When a person, especially the head of a household, loses work or income, that person has lost his/her most important tool for meeting basic needs and building wealth. Even if the person lives in a developed society that offers unemployment benefit, the person still sees such a big cut in pay that may affect a string of lifestyle areas the person has come to regard as normal. Job loss can have direct impact on four basic needs in countries like America:

• Food or Diet -- the unemployed may no longer be able to afford certain restaurants, groceries, foods.

• Housing -- the person may forfeit her current home. The time might have come to downgrade from owning a house to renting, from a large house to a smaller one that may not be conducive for the family. Sometimes the scary experience of foreclosure becomes the reality, as the bank or lender takes back the keys to the jobless person's home.
• Transportation -- the jobless may have to sell his/her car. Worse the bank or car dealer may repossess the vehicle. If the person has a paid-for car, keeping fuel in the car may become too expensive, and paying for regular maintenance or repair on the car may be financially out of the question. One may have to give up driving entirely, opting for a bicycle, catching the bus, or walking (which may be good for health, but nothing else)
• Utility -- the person may not have enough money to keep the house properly air-conditioned in summer or heated during winter. For example, where we live the average home's heating bill may easily near or top $200, not to be outdone by the cooling bill during summer.

Because of these financial constraints, the unemployed may begin to dip into his checking account, savings account, investment account or retirement account just to meet basic needs. Unemployment is a financial earthquake that rattles the monetary foundation of an individual, resulting in many financial fractures and fragments that are not easily and quickly pieced back together. It may take years before one rebuilds that safe financial habitat equipped with checking, savings, investment and retirement accounts, if ever again.

Yet as awful as the financial cost of unemployment can be, losing a job is much more than losing a pay check. It's more than the economic cost of living on far less than you used to.

Job loss comes with a social cost, as the jobless person's social status takes a dive. The unemployed feels different among her employed peers outside of the work environment. The word soon gets around that Sarah has been fired, and Sarah's friends begin to look at her with eyes laden with dwindling respect. And Sarah herself feels diminished, less than the Sarah she used to feel like.

Job loss also carries psychological and emotional price tags. These are probably the most exacting costs of all. When you lose your job you feel afraid, the fear that you may not find another job any time soon, and with this daunting fear comes its twin, financial insecurity. You feel shame, the embarrassment that comes with a loss of self-esteem, feeling like, "I must be incapable. May be that's the real reason they got rid of me." You feel like the player that gets benched, or worse, cut from the team. When you're jobless you may feel useless and worthless, unqualified or even disqualified for any other employer.

Anger may set in, as frustration mounts, with outbursts of home rage toward family members. Example: One guy who's been out of work began to get abusive and violent towards his wife and children. The wife said he's been drinking heavily, and it's now scary to be around him. Obviously, this guy is about to crumble under the load of having his manhood pinned down for months, as he gets tired of relying on his wife's income to support the family. Though at first grateful that his wife was toting the financial burden of the household, he now feels resentment-driven anger towards his working wife, and he can't quite figure out this irrational rage towards the hand that's feeding him. The hardworking man that he's been most of his life, this hubby is suddenly fed up with the wife-dependent syndrome.

In addition to all of the above, the unemployed may go on a self-doubting spree: "May be I'm not as good at what I do as I once thought. May be my skill level is no longer good enough. What's wrong with me? How could I have avoided being fired? Where did I mess up? Somehow this must be my fault."

You feel guilty, feeling like you've let down anyone who depends on your income. For a parent or spouse, this guilt can bite like torture at the hand of Al Qaeda terrorists.

No wonder some unemployed people lie about their situation. They cover up and try to hide the fact that they've been laid off. One mother who lost her job kept making up stories when her kids asked her why Mom had not bought the toys she promised. She "protected" her kids by telling them more lies.

It is because of the psychological loss associated with unemployment that a jobless person may sink into depression. Some even entertain suicidal thoughts, while others actually act out suicide.

Employers need to take the total package of financial and emotional devastation into account when they consider passing out pink slips, especially to dedicated, devoted, loyal employees who have served their companies with unreserved time, talent, skill and sweat. Yes, the employer may be terminating jobs to save the company money, but is it always worth the trade when saving your company money means shattering the lives of real individuals and families, or in some cases causing people to lose hope and lose even their lives?

In our current world shackled with the chains of recession and mounting joblessness, let us not forget that employment or a job is not just about a pay check. Rightly or wrongly, humans do find meaning, purpose, self-esteem, and fulfillment in work that sustains our livelihood. When that livelihood is yanked from beneath us, we lose far more than money. Our world unravels, and we would appreciate anyone who truly understands our financial and psychological situation, someone who can do anything to prevent our sinking further into the emotional basement, somebody who can help shorten our period of unemployment with the mental trauma that doubles its painful impact.

Those of us who still have our income intact may regard such feelings as character weakness or overreaction, but these feelings and thoughts are real, and they hurt. The unemployed do not warrant our contempt. They need our understanding, support, our taking their hands and praying with them, our networking and spreading the word to help find new employment for them.

What a joy it was when one of those 2.6 million unemployed people informed us this week of his new employment. The smiley face man said, "I have found work! Thank y'all for praying."

Do you know anyone who has lost his/her job lately? Remember, that person has lost so much more than a pay check. So much more...