April 10, 2009
President Barrick Obama
White House
Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC
Dear President Obama,
I have never written a letter to a president before, but felt that if anyone were to read my letter. your would. I hope that you won’t take these out of context because I feel bad that I am even writing to you.
My husband and I are in the middle class of working people. However, since October 11th of 2007, I have been unemployed and my husband has been unemployed also. I took a medical leave of absence and it ended January 15, 2008. Since I had to quit my job, we no longer have medical benefits and can not afford them, even if we did have them.
Once of the letters i received from the State of Washington Unemployment sated that in August of 2009 all Emergency Unemployment benefits will run out even if there is a balance on your account. However, I just found out that my last check will be April 15, 2009, not August of 2009.
I have been sending out resumes after resume since February of 2008, to no avail. I have restructured my resumes 5 times in the hope that someone would answer my letters. That way at least I would know that maybe my resume was keeping me from getting a job. But the resume was not the cause. During this past year of sending out resumes, I have only received one interview and three letters stating that they have hired someone they felt was better suited for the job.
My background is very diverse in the secretarial field. I have both legal and medical terminology; I have been a buyer/planning in the purchasing real, for 12 years; I have been an Assistant Admin, Executive Assistant for Directors and have owned my own business for 12 years prior to 1990. I am even applying to Receptionist jobs just to have a check and possibly benefits too, but still nothing.
The stimulus that will be going out, we will never see because we are paying off our State and Internal Revenue taxes from prior years. The silver lining in that, is that the stimulus will pay some of the amount owed, off, and we are very, very grateful for that.
We have went to Energy Assistance places for help, county agencies for help and some churches. The energy assurances and county agencies say that we make too much money.
I am very frightened, that we will loose everything we have so far, if we cannot find work and loose our unemployment benefits too. With out benefits, we only have enough money to pay our mortgages payment, our second mortgage payment, our electricity, water and money for propane and pellets for heat and some food.
Please President Obama, is there anything you can do for all of us who are on Unemployment and looking daily for work to be able to keep our Emergency Unemployment benefits just until the end of the year or until our economy seems to be getting better?
I am so very frightened, right now, I just want to cry. We are on a private contract and the person that sold our home to us, would like nothing better than to buy it back from us. But then, where would we go. Neither of us have jobs.
Please President Obama, please could you just let us have our unemployment benefits until the end of the year. I cannot think of anything worse than living within a tent city.
Respectfully yours,
Claudia Agate
P.S. Thanks again for being our president
