Making ends meet: Cooking up new job skills

For 36 years, Fran Wolfe worked in area factories, raised her son with her husband Larry and lived a modest life.

Debbie Kiefer, likewise, held clerical jobs -- her last full time work was in October 2007 -- while husband Wendell worked for Buch­heit and they raised two sons.

Both women are now unemployed and struggling to sustain themselves. Wolfe estimates that since she and her husband lost their jobs when Dana Corp. closed its doors in 2007, they have been spending $1,000 to $2,000 a month out of their savings to cover bills. Those expenses have included $537 a month to maintain health insurance coverage as well as credit card bills and two car payments. They fortunately owe no money on their home.

As they have burned through their retirement savings, they have also seen their nest egg depleted by a falling stock market. "We hated to use it, but we have to live, too," Wolfe said.

Kiefer said she and her husband, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in April, have emptied their retirement savings and can't make their house payments of $703 a month. They can't pay their credit cards and are barred from filing bankruptcy because Wendell filed six years ago.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.comDebbie Kiefer, center, and Fran Wolfe help Culinary Arts instructor Doc Cain swtich trays Wednesday, February 11, 2009, during a luncheon at the Career and Technology Center that the class catered. Cain says that the adult students are ahead of younger students because they have so much more experience in all walks of life.

They expect to lose the home near Marble Hill, Mo., that they purchased in December 2005. "It was our dream house," Kiefer said. "It has three acres, room for goats and chickens."

With the struggle to pay bills, extras are out of the question. That means no movies, no food from restaurants. Wolfe and her husband have given up camping trips to Kentucky Lake. Both women are grandmothers, and they said it was painful to cut back on birthday and Christmas gifts.

Both women have enough woes that they might be forgiven if they just gave up. But while they live with trouble, they are also looking to the future. They are among 55 students aged 35 and older who are enrolled in training programs available at Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, or CTC. In the culinary arts program they work alongside younger pupils, many still in high school, to obtain new skills they hope will carry them through to retirement.

"I just want a job to survive," Wolfe said.

Job losses hit Kiefer and Wolfe a little earlier than many who have lost employment as the national and international economy soured during 2008. Their struggles, and decisions about how to cope, are being repeated in homes across Southeast Missouri. The number of people filing first-time claims for regular or extended unemployment benefits was 80 percent higher in December than in July over a 10-county area from Perryville to the Bootheel. Unemployment across the region reached 7.2 percent in December, up from 6.4 percent in November and an average of 5.7 percent for 2007.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.comCulinary Arts student Debbie Kiefer refills a spinach salad to be used in a luncheon catered by the class Wednesday, February 11, 2009, at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center.

The worst-hit sectors are companies that rely on the national and international market for sales. When layoffs hit those industries, it can trigger the Trade Readjustment Act, with benefits that include unemployment payments, a partial subsidy to continue health insurance coverage and tuition assistance for up to two years. Former employees of Dana Corp. and Thorngate Ltd., for example, are covered by the Trade Readjustment Act.

Paying for school

For others, including Kiefer, returning to school means trying to find the resources to pay the costs and stay alive. She said she's lucky because she was able to secure work-study funding at the CTC. Pell Grants and federally guaranteed student loans of up to $9,500 a year are also available.

The CTC serves 10 public high schools and three parochial schools, providing day programs. The center also offers night programs aimed at post-secondary students and allows post-secondary students to enroll in day programs when there are slots available, said Dean Whitlow, assistant director.

Of the center's 584 students in long-term training, defined as courses taking a year or longer to complete, 137 are post-high school and 28 of that number are receiving benefits under the Trade Readjustment Act. All but five of the students receiving Trade Readjustment Act benefits are 35 or older.

The school helps potential students access all the grant-based financial aid it can find for them, Whitlow said. While efforts to stay afloat can include with­drawals from a 401(k) plan, those withdrawals are counted as income and can reduce or eliminate eligibility for Pell Grants, Whitlow said.

Because students in retraining programs usually face challenges keeping their bills paid, Whitlow said, loans are a last resort. "We don't like to see students get in a lot of debt."

Scheduling

One obstacle to people seeking retraining is the school's schedule. Programs offering a certificate or degree take one to two years to complete and generally start in September, Whitlow said. Last fall, the school scoured its catalog for shorter-term courses and identified several areas where a few weeks or a few months in the classroom could help provide skills that would make workers more valuable to potential employers.

"The thing we have seen is that our short-term training this fall was very weak," Whitlow said.

Slots in the long-term courses are limited, he said. "There are a signficant number of potential students not gaining access," Whitlow said.

For example, he said, there are 49 slots in the practical nursing program, which offers day and evening classes. Only about one-fourth of the people who apply are accepted, Whitlow noted.

One of those who made it in is Brian Miller, 59, who spent 22 years in the U.S. Navy and another 16 years working for Dana. His wife has been a police officer and dispatcher. With his military pension and wife's earnings, he could have waited until additional payments, such as Social Security, became available in a few years.

To cut spending, Miller and wife turned over the keys to their motor home, which originally cost $98,000, to their bank, expecting to end up with a small balance after it was sold. But the bank sold it for so little -- Miller estimates 10 percent of its value -- they filed bankruptcy in 2008 to discharge the $50,000 balance that remained.

"They wanted almost as much in payments for this dead horse as we were paying before," he said.

They have drained some of their retirement savings to cut down other debt balances, Miller said. The decision to train as a nurse had as much to do with the idea of service as it did for a paycheck, he said.

The Cape Girardeau native remembers having his appendix out at the old Saint Francis Hospital and a nurse who brought him iced apricot juice. "I always remembered that nurse being so nice to me," he said.

That pointed him to nursing, he said, noting that he feels luckier than some that he can make a decision based on work he will enjoy rather than an absolute need for a maximum paycheck. "I no longer have to take the job that pays the most," Miller said. "That is my reward, and I hope to make a difference."

But Wolfe and Kiefer must return to work, and they are trying to pass on some of the wisdom they have acquired to the younger students in their classes.

Wolfe's advice: Don't work in the same place as your spouse, prepare for the worst and remember that jobs don't come easy. "I also tell them to be careful -- no babies and stay in school."

Learning with teens makes Kiefer laugh sometimes, she said, and it makes her want to cry as she watches some young people treat school as a joke. "It is like, aren't you listening?," she said of the youths who attend her classes. "You can tell who wants to be here and who thought it was easy."

The main advice she offers, Kiefer said, is for the young people to be aware that life won't always go their way. "Think about what you want to do," she said she tells them. "Don't limit yourself."

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

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