"Opportunity"

For those who think that people on welfare don't work, I want to you know that we do.  Not only do the majority of us spend a job's worth of hours every week searching for work, we also have the obligations to fulfill.  I have now found out that if you go long enough spending 40-60 hours a week searching for work and fulfilling your state obligation of attending poor school, you get "offered" work "opportunity" in order to earn your food stamps.  Now, there isn't anything wrong with expecting people to earn their way in this world.  People should earn their way, I'm just wondering how efficient this "opportunity" is when it comes to the work search.

Consider this with me, if I spend forty hours a week searching, researching and applying for employment, plus the 5-10 hours a week that I'm obligated to attend classes or provide other proof that I'm looking for work, how will adding another 5-10 hours of forced volunteerism help?  How will adding another anxiety-obligation actually help me find employment or provide the medical care I need in order to be a fully functioning member of society? (Anxiety-obligation in this case means an obligation that is tied to my children's well-being.  If I do not do this, the state will take away food stamps for my family.) If anything, it ties up more hours that I could continue to devote to this work search.  

Let me see if I can explain something. When you look at the unemployment rate you see its low, leading you to believe that there are actually many jobs available.  But the unemployment rate doesn't take into account the underemployed like my husband, or the unemployed who aren't claiming unemployment insurance payments.  There are a lot of people in the same place as us.  Idaho, and this area, really likes to claim a low unemployment rate, but by doing so they marginalize a significant number of people.  I see a number of people who are participating in poor school who are in this margin. The problem is that there aren't enough jobs for the marginalized and the more recently unemployed.  

The job market is not an employee's market, instead it is still an employer's market.  Many of the jobs I apply for have 50-100 applicants for one entry level position.  Now, lets consider that you are an employer.  There are obviously applications that do not meet your requirements for your position that you have open, and those get tossed.  Then you have the applicants that meet most or all of the job requirements.  You choose anywhere from 2-8 to interview.  If I am among that pool, you may be ok with my qualifications, but you won't be impressed with my physical issues which you will see the moment I walk into the interview. Its been said by more than one case worker that they cannot figure out why I am not employed.  I wonder if they are blind to the fact that I have to use crutches.  

So let's wrap all of this information up into something we can understand.  There are not enough jobs when you consider the number of people who are not being counted by the state as unemployed.  With a huge employee pool, someone who needs accommodations for a physical problem is not going to be the top candidate for any position.  Forcing me to now work for the organization that has failed to help me find work is still not going to help me find a job that will provide money to pay for things like heat, electricity and water.