We Are the 99 Percent

19th October 2011

Photo with 84 notes

I have covered up my face in this photo because being poor, educated and out of work is embarrassing. I’m 28. I graduated in December 2009 with a Bachelors in Graphic Design from a top school. I am the only one of my siblings who completed college. Luckily for me, I graduated with zero debt because my childless aunt, who is a doctor, paid for my education. I have been unemployed for a year and a half after working the graveyard shift in a warehouse for nine months at $10 an hour until the warehouse shutdown and moved out of state. I have been working since I was a teenager and this is the longest I’ve been unemployed in my life.

I live with my mother, my brother and my sister. None of us have jobs. My sister is 31, my brother is 26 and my mother is in her 60’s. My mother was a retired civil engineer but she can’t even get a job at Walmart because she is overqualified and has been out of work way too long. We are living off my father’s life insurance money from six years ago that is quickly running out. We have less than 50K left in the bank and we use at least 30K a year for living expenses. We could very well be homeless in the next year.

I have sent out hundreds of resumes without responses. I have long “lowered my standards” and applied to any job. However, even janitor positions require at least a year of previous janitorial experience. The few job interviews I had in my field were nerve-wracking group job interviews where I was staring my competition of seven or eight people, young and old, in the face competing for one job position. In other professional job interviews, I was told that I was competing against people who “worked in the industry” who had decades of experience. I have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting a job. There is a huge demand for my design work, yet no one wants to actually pay for my services. I end up literally FREE-lancing my design work.

All of the few and far between low-paying jobs in my area are temp positions. NO ONE spoke a word of English at the last job I worked in a produce warehouse working for $8 an hour 40+ hours a week before I was laid off.

I have a medical bill for over a thousand dollars from when I was badly beaten randomly on the path in my town earlier this year by a drunk stranger and woke up in the hospital getting stitches in my face. I am broke and unemployed and have no way to pay back this debt. I am the 99 percent.