joblessness

There was the Detroit hotel and restaurant owner who tried to kill himself.

Then there was the Maryland political analyst who lost her $760,000 home to foreclosure. Aaron Heideman found her living in a Toyota Camry.

And who could forget the guy running a food bank in Georgia who said he was going into debt at the rate of $1,000 a month to help his neighbors?

Those are just three of the hundreds of stories Aaron Heideman, aka The Man In A Van, collected on a cross-country odyssey to hear from Americans, in their own words, how their lives have been affected by the recession.

“How has the recession affected you?” A sign atop his van asks.

“Tell me your story,” beckons the van’s side.

Laid off from his job at a paint store in southern Oregon, Heideman decided he would do a conceptual art project, driving his pencil-yellow Dodge van through California, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, up the Eastern Seaboard and through New England to Grand Rapids, Mich.

[caption id="attachment_6365" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Heideman outside a Wallingford laundromat"][/caption]

That’s where he entered himself in the annual ArtPrize competition in September, hoping to win the $250,000 prize.

He didn’t. So he recently moved to Seattle, where he went to art school and lived for some years. That’s where I caught up with him.

A South Florida news reporter who met Heideman in the summer described him as “not-surprisingly scruffy” because the bearded, sandal-clad artist was living in his van. This week the clean-shaven 29-year-old was dressed in a light-blue button-down shirt, neatly pressed grey slacks and shiny black shoes. He’s job hunting.

Utah may soon make even deeper cuts to the unemployment pay of senior citizens who are collecting social security, but were also laid off from their jobs.

The state's population of jobless senior citizens is growing, but employers are fighting to cut their unemployment benefits, reports Tony Semerad of the Salt Lake Tribune. Currently, Utah is one of seven states that docks social security from unemployment benefits for seniors who lose their jobs. A state law expiring half-way through next year would deduct the full amount of social security from unemployment pay. Right now, only half the amount gets deducted.

The debate over the law, which has generated a fierce clash between employers and senior advocates in Utah, provides another glimpse into the creeping financial devastation that affects many older Americans.

The news comes just as the Census Bureau prepares to release latest poverty figures. Those figures are being debated, even before they're released because of long-standing criticisms they are based on archaic formulas.

The National Academy of Sciences, which has studied the Census calculations, estimates the poverty rate among older Americans is likely nearly twice as high as its traditional 10 percent level, according to Hope Yen of the Associated Press.

In the AP's story, Robin Talbert, president of the AARP Foundation, calls it a hidden problem. Talbert says: "There are still many millions of older people on the edge, who don't have what they need to get by."