For the last three months, John has been pounding the pavement, searching in vain for a job.
He’s currently on food stamps and depends on friends for housing and transportation. He’s teetering on the verge of despair.
“I’m very depressed, very worried about the future,” he said, the frustration evident in his voice. “All my life, I have been an independent individual, and it really bothers me.”
Self-employed for more than 20 years, John, who preferred that the Sun not use his last name, has experience in auto repair, sales, carpentry, electronics, and plumbing. He’s worked regularly since he was 18, but the work dried up.
As a result, he started looking for full-time employment in other fields, applying at all the major retailers in Santa Maria and getting no response. He’s meandered through fraudulent Craigslist job postings, uploaded résumés online, and signed up with temporary employment services, all of which have had nothing to offer.
“Basically I’ve stopped applying at any of these corporate sites because there’s just been nothing,” John explained. “They say, ‘Yeah, we need people right now, we need help badly.’ I get that a lot, but nothing happens. You wonder what’s going on.”
Fed up with the fruitless search, John believes there are other factors involved beyond his résumé. You see, John is 61 years old, and though he’s in good health, he speculates that his age has come into play on more than one occasion.
“I can’t figure out any other reason. I’ve got top, grade-A references,” he said. “I haven’t gotten any response from any of those companies, other than a thank you, and that’s it.”
Though he’s approaching the official retirement age of 65, John doesn’t see himself retiring anytime soon. And he knows he’s not alone. He’s just one of a growing number of people who fall into the category of “mature workers,” those over the age of 43 with more than 10 years of job experience, who are finding out their Social Security simply isn’t enough to get by.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011 marks the first year “Baby Boomers” are reaching age 65. It’s an aging population increasingly determining the makeup of the job market, according to Juan Millan, consultant for the California Employment Development Department.
“We’re getting a number of retirees having to re-enter the workforce,” Millan said. “The situation is similar to students looking for the traditional summer jobs that were normally always available. The permanent labor force—people who are working full time around the clock—have taken up these positions that were traditionally available.
“Employers are trying to make things work with what they’ve got,” he continued. “They’re paying lower wages. It’s really a difficult situation across the board. There are fewer jobs and a larger number of people competing for those same jobs.”
The most recent data available from the Employment Development Department reveals just 1,931 new job listings in Santa Maria in August. But things aren’t all bad in Santa Barbara County overall. As of last month, the county boasted the third-lowest overall unemployment rate in California, at 8.8 percent, behind only Bay Area counties Marin and San Mateo.
According to the U.S. Census Fact Finder, in Santa Barbara County from 2005 to 2009, 3.7 percent of people ages 55 to 64, 4.8 percent ages 65 to 74, and 3.2 percent ages 75 and older were unemployed. Recent numbers are unavailable, though they appear likely to increase, as the manufacturing industry, which according to the EDD traditionally tends to hire the oldest workers, continues to decline in the United States.
A saving grace
At 75 years old, Santa Maria resident Loretta Paoli can’t even begin to count the number of jobs she’s held through the years, starting as a concessionaire at Chicago’s Wrigley Field when she was just 15. She’s always loved fixing things, and for years she owned a local printing company.
Several years ago, while caring for her mother, Paoli decided to take an early retirement. However, when she applied for Social Security, she learned quickly she’d made a mistake.
“They told me, ‘This is what you’re going to get,’ and I said, ‘Excuse me, I’ve worked all my life and I can’t live off of that,’” Paoli said. “Then they said, ‘You could go on [Social Security Insurance].’ … I’m not even going to go there, because that’s a hurt for what they did to me.”
When she rejoined the job hunt, she ran into countless dead ends and cold shoulders.
“I went to every printing company in this town,” she said. “I felt something out there was available, even if it was desk work. I knew about the paper business … but there was nothing. No encouragement, even from my friends.”
Despite leaving her interviews with a confident feeling, Paoli remained unemployed. She suspected she was being passed over because of
her age, not her abilities.
“It’s hard for me to try to find a job at 75,” she said. “Not that they don’t want to hire you, but the main office says, ‘What can she contribute at that age?’ and they’ll go to the younger generation.
“There’s all kinds of discrimination, and anybody looking for a job today, they better get on their hands and knees and pray, because there aren’t very many out there,” she said.
Seeking to gain more experience, Paoli volunteered at Catholic Charities, Good Samaritan, and at the Santa Maria Public Library. Then she heard about PathPoint, a nonprofit group with a local office that helps seniors in their search for work.
Buoyed by grants from the federal government, PathPoint’s Senior Community Service Employment Program (CSEP) contracts with hundreds of local nonprofits, government agencies, and retailers, placing clients in training, and then into jobs. The program serves 143 low-income adults ages 55 and older from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles, and has a proven track record of success.
After nearly three years in the CSEP program, Paoli now works 12 hours a week at $8 an hour, supplementing her retirement benefits with the money she makes at Gifts in Kind, a thrift shop run by PathPoint in concert with United Way. Gifts in Kind gathers unwanted Items from local businesses and resells them at a fraction of the original cost to nonprofits and low-income individuals.
“CSEP has given me the pride in myself, and pride in what I do,” Paoli said.
Unfortunately, CSEP is now reeling from a 62-percent cut in funding for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Where PathPoint used to be able to offer seniors 20 hours per week at minimum wage, it can now only offer 12. It’s also hamstrung when it comes to enrolling any new clients.
Carol Graeser, PathPoint’s program manager, worries that with CSEP on hold, unemployed seniors are going to be left behind.
“If this program folds, then they’re back [on the streets],” Graeser said. “When I see a woman in her 80s who has to go back to living in her car because she can’t make it on her Social Security, something’s wrong.”
Graeser cited unemployment as a major factor contributing to the statistically high rates of suicide and depression among older Americans. Besides a paycheck, she said, the ability to work provides seniors with a vital social networking function and can literally mean the difference between life and death.
“They’re knocking on doors and hearing ‘no,’ ‘no,’ ‘no,’” Graeser said. “I can hardly think of hitting 75 and going, ‘Oh my gosh, my spouse has died and I have to go back to work because there’s no money.’ Those scenarios are real to me because I hear them all the time.”
Work for good health
As time goes by and technology changes the ways companies do business, some careers simply evaporate into the ether. That’s what happened to Richard McCann, a 68-year-old Santa Maria resident.
McCann worked in commercial printing for 30 years, 10 of them at the Santa Barbara News-Press, where he became a victim of downsizing.
In 2005, McCann realized his career didn’t exist any more as he knew it, becoming what’s known in today’s parlance as a “dislocated worker.” He accepted an early retirement package but found his Social Security and unemployment benefits lacking, so he went to the local Employment Development Department office and looked up printing jobs. Nothing came up; the industry had shifted to computers, with which he was unfamiliar.
“It was hard,” McCann said. “ I had to start looking for a different kind of job.”
As he explored other careers and found himself repeatedly turned down, McCann said he could see the danger of having nothing to fill the time.
“It’s like a creeping isolationism,” he said. “When you don’t have work and your career’s gone, you can’t help but get isolated. [Seniors] watch television, and sometimes that’s all they have, really.”
McCann pressed forward, taking part in work training programs at the Center for Employment Training and California Department of Rehab. He took courses at Allan Hancock College, where he learned computing, multimedia, and typing.
But McCann credits CSEP with giving him direction to go back to school and build his job skills. Through the program, he’s gotten a job with the United Way, where he performs inventory and safety inspections.
“The program has been a godsend to me, as I’m sure it has been to all the participants,” McCann said. “It’s sad that it’s being cut, because it means there are people out there in need that aren’t getting it.”
According to Graeser, lack of computer training is one of the biggest barriers seniors face in today’s working environment. CSEP’s Digital Inclusion program targeted seniors who’d never touched a computer, teaching more than 700 clients on the Central Coast how to use a mouse and keyboard, how to send e-mails, and how to use the Internet. The program proved successful, and helped get seniors up to par with their younger counterparts—until it, too, was cut by the federal government.
Graeser warns that if programs like CSEP are terminated, the reverberations will be felt in other areas of society, such as health care and housing. Most importantly, she said, seniors need a support system while job hunting so they don’t get discouraged when they hit dead ends.
For Paoli, who’s experienced the struggle of long-term unemployment, the impact of having a job on the mental states and health of older Americans is undeniable.
“Seniors, unless they have something to get up for, they don’t [get up],” Paoli said. “I see people all the time sitting around … not knowing what to do with themselves, and it’s such a shame because it’s hard for them to get around.”
Something to offer
While the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 outlawed ageism in the workplace, nearly everyone the Sun contacted for this piece agreed that discrimination against seniors still exists, at least on a surreptitious level.
The reality is that age discrimination in the workplace is nearly impossible to prove. However, it’s no secret that in tough economic times, businesses look closely at health-care costs and workers’ compensation, two areas where seniors carry the most risk.
The perceived bias is so pervasive, PathPoint has gone as far as changing its clients’ résumés to remove dates, just to get their foot in the door.
“For sure, there’s still discrimination. I hate to say it, but there is,” Graeser said. “I think businesses these days are looking at cost-effective ways, and to hire a 75-year-old when they can get [a 20-year-old], people say they don’t look at it, but I think they do.”
There is hope, however. Graeser sees a shift on the horizon to more employers hiring older workers, as Baby Boomers take more control over hiring processes.
As an employer, Lorraine Duenez, operations manager at United Way, knows what it means to keep a keen eye on the bottom line. At the same time, she’s willing to look at what older workers have to offer.
Duenez agrees that discrimination still exists and said employers mistakenly think that by hiring a younger person, they’ll get more energy. Instead of basing decisions on age, she said, employers should see the advantage of bringing in an “old school work ethic.”
“When you have a senior, they’re proud to be there,” Duenez said. “You can find that in the younger generations as well, but I don’t think employers see that the older generations can be just as good—and maybe even better—than some of the other candidates that may be out there for some of the positions.”
The benefits work both ways, as older generations can impart work ethic to their younger counterparts. In the workplace, McCann said he finds the opportunity to pass on his wisdom to others rewarding.
“One thing older people who are in the workforce can do is always be helpful to the younger ones,” McCann said. “Everybody has strengths and weaknesses, no matter what the age is.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas can be contacted at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 22-29, 2011.