Long-term unemployment in the United States

According to an article that ran in the Washington Post at the end of September, 2013, some 4.1 million people in the United States had been unemployed for longer than 27 weeks.  These people are now known as "long-term unemployed."  On Dec. 2, USA Today, using a slightly different standard (6 months rather than 27 weeks) gave the same figure for "long-term unemployed," and noted that many of them had also lost their ability to purchase food stamps on Nov. 1 when that program was cut back.

On Dec. 28, at least a quarter of these long-term jobless will lose their unemployment benefits unless Congress takes action to extend existing programs.  And nearly a million more are slated lose them between January and March.

What will happen to these people?

In "Domino," our unemployed hero tries pawning the family's jewelry.

Well, one of the first things that happens is you try to get help from other family members, and from close friends.  But if you've been out of work for six months or more, chances are that you will already have gone that route and there won't be much help available.

Next thing is you pawn the family's jewelry, take whatever odd job you can find, and try to downsize, but again, you've probably already done all of those things.

Next thing that can easily happen is - you become homeless.

And you become part of an increasingly vicious cycle.  If you're homeless, it's much harder to get a job.  Harder for you to spruce yourself up for a job interview.  Harder for you to have an address to give to a potential employer.  Harder for you to afford a cell phone so that a potential employer can contact you for an interview.

And harder for you to have the frame of mind you need, when and if you can line up a job interview.

Is it right for us to simply push these people, and this problem, aside?  I think not.

And that is the point of my film Domino:  Caught in the Crisis.  We need to really understand what these people are going through, so that we will help find solutions.  It is morally, socially, and economically wrong to throw in the towel on millions of our fellow citizens, on millions of our fellow human beings.

Shooting the final scenes

I had intended this to be a post about the background music, but the young composer just became a father and his mind is elsewhere.  Before the baby was born, he had nearly completed the music, so I'll give him a couple of weeks, then ask him to give it to me.

In the meantime, to bring Domino up to the length required by major U.S. television channels (PBS and such), I wrote two more scenes, one of which we have shot and I'm in the middle of editing.  Film-making being what it is, we shot that scene twice.  The first time, one of the technicians made an error serious enough that we had to throw the whole thing out.  But the second time, it turned out alright.

Luis (Antonio de la Malena) with Marta (played by Marta).

This is a scene in which we see Luis the father in his home with two of his kids:  the youngest and the oldest.  We learn that everyone in the family is thinking about the upcoming wedding.  We learn that the eldest son is trying to get work but he can't, either.  And we learn that Luis has nice kids--kids he would certainly want to protect.

As we know, however, he may not be able to protect them.  And that is the crux of our story.

Marta, her dad, and two crew members.

The final scene, which we had hoped to film this weekend but could not because our star had to go off to Milan (Italy) to sing, is one in which we will see how some people are perfectly willing to take advantage of those in trouble.  We will also see something that I find shocking:  in Spain, when you lose your home because you can't pay your mortgage (something that is happening more and more these days), not only do you become homeless but in addition, you still are legally required to repay that loan.

This means that the banks make out like bandits.  They get your home and, if you ever find work again, they get your money.  Your wages are garnished.

Ah, our wonderful director, yours truly (Eve A. Ma).

And there you have it for today.

THE NEXT POST will be about the completed and soon-to-be-released double CD of flamenco cante (singing) of Antonio de la Malena.