Unemployed Over 50: An American Crisis

July 12, 2011 NYC

Well – it’s official. The recent abysmal jobs report and articles such as this one by Paul Solman helped to seal the deal. I’m committed to researching and writing about this topic for my master’s thesis. Getting older isn’t for sissies and neither is long-term unemployment.  Spoiler alert – while by nature I’m an eternal optimist, I’m also a realist and a pragmatist. Not only do I see a dire need to address what is arguably becoming a crisis of epic proportion but – believe it or not– I also see a real window of political opportunity here – more on this later.

There are a couple of research studies already underway on this subject – most notably at Rutgers and Boston College. That’s great – and I hope to avail myself of all their collective knowledge – but my real aim here is to find out what can be done now to harness resources in play and create new ones where needed in order to help mitigate and eliminate the very real hardships being felt by the 2 million plus individuals that are out of work and over 50.

I’ll be posting my thoughts and resources along the way,  in what I hope will be received as helpful pieces to this puzzle from a wide variety of reliable sources.

I look forward to hearing your comments here…the journey begins.

Cristy Dwyer