Over the past few weeks, as we’ve neared our goal of documenting 100 Stories for Over 50 and Out of Work, we’ve tried to email every U.S. governor, senator and representative about the project and invited their responses.
Have you ever tried to email a governor or member of Congress? Very few accept direct emails any longer. Most require you to fill out forms on their websites, so trying to contact them becomes a tedious and time-consuming process of filling in the non-standardized forms. But we sent info about and the link to Over 50 and Out of Work to as many as we could.
Amazingly, many websites screen by your zip code, even for senators, who are supposed to take a national perspective. If your zip code does not match their states’ or districts’, you are often not able to submit the form. We were not able to contact many governors or members of Congress due to our N.J. zip code.
FYI — Here was the response from our government:
- One exploratory phone call from a staff member in the office of Lincoln Chafee, governor of Rhode Island
- One form letter from Daniel Inouye, senator from Hawaii
Comments
I remember Senator Inouye from The Watergate Hearings. We called him "Senator "Ain't no way" because he wasn't going to stand for the baloney! I think being "Middle aged" is just a state of mine or a phrase. Many of my buddies from high school and college who are my age are talking about being older Americans. We reach a "certain" point in time,different for each individual where our bodies start to differe with our brains. Our minds are still 25 ish and then all of a sudden we aren't anymore as those aches and pains start to appear:)
No surprise to me that those are the extent of the responses you've gotten. I've been contacting my Senators and Reps and attempting, unsuccessfully, to contact Senators and Reps in other states regarding the unemployment situation(for all ages), the lack of consequences for the crooked banks, and on a variety of other topics all pertinent to our decimated economy. I, and many other unemployed like me, have attempted to make our voices heard through emails, phone calls, twitters....They really don't seem to be listening and, unfortunately, the feeling a lot of us are getting is that we, the unemployed(especially the unemployed in their 40s and 50s and older) are expendable. We are simply collateral damage. It's absolutely shameful how willing those in power are to ignore this huge and growing bigger daily, problem.
The employment discrimination in the country is at an all time high and needs to be fixed period. We need to live just like everyone else, and it's very hard to do when salaries are going down 20K to 30K or more and prices are going through the roof. Our water fees are going up 7.5% in Queens, NY - (NOT SALARIES)...!!!!!...What's wrong with this picture??????
Diane, USA.gov has a page http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml that lists all elected officials and you can search by state. Thank you!
Great ideas, Diane! Here is the description that we pasted in to the contact forms: For the past year, we have been traveling across the United States conducting video interviews with Americans who are Over 50 and Out of Work at http://www.overfiftyandoutofwork.com/ We would invite you to add your Comments to our multimedia documentary project. In the Great Recession, older Americans are unemployed at record rates and for longer periods of time than ever before. Over the past 10 years, many boomers have also seen the value of their homes and savings decline precipitously, and they have less time than younger workers to recoup their losses and regain financial equilibrium. Moreover, they face a daunting uphill battle against age discrimination and a bias directed against the unemployed when they seek new jobs. Please take a look at the stories we have documented – together, they forge a remarkable American geographic and socioeconomic mosaic. We currently have 75 interviews online with unemployed boomers, as we head toward our goal of 100 Stories. We think you will take pride in the toughness, resourcefulness and grit of the older Americans in the videos. They are determined to remain independent and get back to work. Our mission is to document the drastic impact of the Great Recession on boomers. We believe that our project improves the cultural perception of older workers, informs the public policy debate and helps make it easier for older Americans to re-enter the workforce. Thank you for your focus on this issue. We look forward to hearing from you.
Do you have a "template" that you used to contact the people, such as a form letter, that others could use? Also, I am wondering is there is a way to have a database of all the pertinent people in one place that others could use. For instance, if I found all the Pennsylvania representatives, I could put their emails or websites in a database, and other people could find it. And I want to say to the honorable Mr. Inouye, Dude, I'm not elderly!