Twin whammy: no job, no aid

Adela Schomburg has always had her smarts to fall back on. They helped her climb out of the welfare system. They helped her go back to school at midlife. And they certainly helped her land lucrative contracts as a software tester in the boom years.

But for the past 18 months, Schomburg's sharp intellect hasn't been able to lift her out of unemployment.

She has joined a spreading pool of jobless across the nation who have used up all their benefits, making them ineligible for the extensions President Bush signed into law Jan. 8.

The number of unemployed workers who can't find a job before drawing their last benefit check is the highest in at least three decades, U.S. Labor Department figures show. Nationwide, 316,080 workers exhausted their benefits in November without finding a job.

The trend worries some economists. While unemployment usually continues to rise in the early stages of a recovery, persistent joblessness can prolong sluggish growth.

"Once you get thrown out of work, it's getting pretty difficult to find another job," said Stephen Stanley, an economist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Conn. "Even though the pace of layoffs hasn't accelerated, there is also not a lot of hiring going on."

Washington offers 30 weeks of regular benefits, a month more than the 26 weeks most states provide.

As the recession lingers, between 8,000 and 10,000 jobless are dropping from the regular state unemployment rolls each month. Most are eligible for the federal extension program, which also lasts up to 26 weeks. When that's exhausted, they can apply for final emergency benefits — the state calls them "extended benefits" — that typically last nine weeks.

Many workers in high-tech, biotechnology and manufacturing who lost their jobs early in the recession, however, used up all 65 weeks of benefits without finding work.

"The (benefit) money is not the issue," Schomburg said. "I'd like to get another job."

A 'jobless recovery'?

Rick Nolte, a 52-year-old computer programmer from Kirkland, is in similar straits. He has been out of work since August 2001, when he was laid off from a software company where he earned $100,000 a year.

"I knew that things were not good. I figured, well, it could take a month or two. I never anticipated it would be this long."

He has survived on unemployment insurance, which pays a maximum of $496 a week, odd jobs and credit cards, whose balances have swelled to $30,000. But his benefits ran out in December, and now he's wondering where next month's rent will come from.

He and his goddaughter, who works as a receptionist, are stuck in the $1,100-a-month apartment they share until the lease expires in May.

"Quite frankly, I'm probably looking at bankruptcy," he said. "I haven't been able to pay my credit cards in over a year."

While some people find jobs after dropping off the benefit rolls, others stop looking altogether. The protracted weakness in the current job market resembles the months after the 1990-91 recession, which economists labeled a "jobless recovery."

Even low-wage jobs elusive

Schomburg, 66, lost her contract job as a software tester for Boeing in July 2001.

She wasn't worried at the time. The job market for her skills — basic functional testing, working out bugs — was still wide open. Then high-end testers started losing their jobs, and Schomburg was suddenly competing for openings against people with years of experience.

"The person who gets the job is the person who used to be making $100,000 a year, and he's coming down to $20 an hour."

Schomburg was earning $60,000 at the peak of the boom economy. The income was a gratifying contrast from years earlier when, after a divorce, she went on welfare to help support herself and her young daughter.

She discovered she had an affinity for computers, though, so in her 50s she returned to school in California, earning a bachelor's degree in business with a focus on information systems. She moved to Oregon and worked for industry giants such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard.

Oregon's tech industry is dominated by hardware, though, so in 1997 Schomburg and her daughter, now 23, settled in the Puget Sound area, where Internet and software jobs seemed as plentiful as pennies.

She found contract work with the former Wall Data in Kirkland, Microsoft, Coinstar, Boeing.

Then the economy plunged. Schomburg has spent the past 18 months looking for a full-time contract. She has deferred payment on her student loans, which now exceed $40,000 thanks to compounding interest. Her unemployment benefits ran out in mid-November.

"Until December, I had concentrated on getting back into technology. Right now, the jobs that I'm looking at have been telemarketer ... a teller. I even went to Home Depot for a store greeter job. I didn't get to first base with them."

She's surviving, barely, on a $900 monthly Social Security check. She shares expenses for her $850-a-month rental house in Everett with her daughter, who's attending vocational school.

With the technology industry still in a slump, and even minimum-wage service jobs out of reach, Schomburg said she doesn't know what she'll do next.

"I've got to go out there and find a job. Period. And I don't have a clue."

Information from Bloomberg News is included in this report. Shirleen Holt: 206-464-8316 or sholt@seattletimes.com.