BOSTON — Behind the staggering unemployment numbers are faces and families.
As part of Boston 25′s in-depth coverage of the unemployment crisis in Massachusetts, I spoke with a single mom who lost her retail management job on March 23.
“Right now, times are uncertain. You don’t know if it’s gonna get worse. You don’t know if it’s gonna get better,” said Michelle Cascio of Lynn.
She’s yet to file an unemployment claim, because the state’s system won’t let her in. And, so the pressure is there for Cascio to keep her family afloat.
“It’s hard because I’m a single parent and not like I have anyone else who can help it all falls on me,” Cascio said.
She has two daughters, ages 3 and 5. She suddenly lost her retail management job of eight years amid a statewide shutdown.
“No matter how much you have in savings, it’s when you’re not working and you’re not bringing in that financial support and you have bills. I have two kids, kids are expensive,” Cascio said.
Cascio peeled back the curtains into her life to help us better see the real-life struggles facing of tens of thousands now in Massachusetts. She documented trips to the grocery store and home schooling her kindergartener.
All things she’s juggling while trying to make ends meet.
When asked how she is making ends meet, and how she is making sure her family has what they all need get by, Cascio said, "It’s basically, I’m living off the savings I’m supposed to save for a house.”
“So it’s basically draining me a lot, financially, and it’s very stressful,” Cascio said.
Cascio said she has tried filing for unemployment for five weeks. She said she’s on the state’s unemployment system every two to three days with no luck.
“They’re saying that there’s an old claim. But yet, I have never filed for unemployment ever before,” she said. "I’ve tried the contact forms. I’ve tried calling and I’ve been disconnected. They would tell me they’d send me a questionnaire to fill out and otherwise without filling that out, I wouldn’t be getting any benefits. Yet, they never have sent me that questionnaire.”
Cascio said it could be worse. She said she is grateful for her savings, the federal stimulus check and, at the moment, she’s staying with her aunt.
She said, for now, her most important job is sheltering her children from stress and fear.
“They just want to see me happy, and if I’m not happy, it makes them sad. So, I have to be really strong for them and just basically get by as much as I can until I go back to work,” Cascio said.
“You just kind of have to make the best out of the worst situation,” she said.
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