Behind every jobless call, a human drama

[babylonsister]

Behind every jobless call, a human drama

By Robert Gavin
Globe Staff / February 18, 2009


LAWRENCE - In normal times, this would be the slow season for Debra Riddick. The phones would ring less often. She'd have a few minutes between calls to catch up on paperwork. Her voice might get some rest.

But these are hardly normal times for Riddick or her employer, the state Division of Unemployment Assistance. Riddick, 44, of Methuen, takes unemployment claims over the phone, and any hope for even a brief lull vanished months ago.

From her cubicle in the Lawrence call center, Riddick has a front line view of the economic tidal wave washing over the state. At exactly 8:30 a.m., she takes her first call, answering, "Debra Riddick speaking. May I help you?" She'll repeat that greeting as many as 60 times over the next 8 1/2 hours, as workers from Ludlow to Billerica to Plymouth file new claims, check old ones, or ask for information because they expect to be laid off.

"It's just gotten so hard out there," Riddick said. "You feel for people, you really feel for them."

Since the summer, the state's unemployment rate has jumped nearly 2 points, to 6.9 percent, the highest since the early 1990s. First-time claims for jobless benefits in Massachusetts are running more than 50 percent ahead of last year, according to the US Labor Department. The total number of workers collecting unemployment in the state has also soared about 50 percent, to more than 160,000.

As a result, the phones never stop ringing in the state's call centers in Boston, Brockton, Lawrence, and Springfield. About 165,000 calls poured in last month, up nearly 25 percent from a year earlier, according to the agency. Mark Wigler, the division's director of field operations, expects a similar increase this month.

more...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/18/behind_every_jobless_call_a_human_drama/

[ejpoeta]

1. maybe we should make the lawmakers who keep opposing everything

with no ideas of their own start answering the phones. they can work at food banks too. maybe they would stop seeing numbers and start seeing people.

[liberal N proud]

2. I would go for forcing the law makers to spend time at the unemployment offices

Maybe they should have been visiting unemployment offices, homeless shelters and other social service offices instead of making jaunts to the Pope who tells them they must protect the unborn.

They need to see this first hand.

[ejpoeta]

3. why protect them once they are here!!!! they are only important before

they can even survive outside the womb.

[Missy Vixen]

4. I wonder how many people would have to get together to make this happen

I would be very much in favor of forcing ALL lawmakers to take one day off in the next month or so, be assigned to a random unemployment office in their district, and let them deal with it for one day.

Unfortunately for all of us, it will never happen. After all, they are very, VERY well insulated from the great unwashed, and I say this as a resident of a state with two Democratic senators.

[ejpoeta]

5. it doesn't matter the party. they are all like that.

I mean, they get paid a LOT of money. they get health insurance that WE pay for. they do not have to deal with the same crap we do. we have the ruling class, and the rest of us. why do you think coleman is still clawing and fighting. he wants to be in the ruling class, not out here with the rest of us peons.