Stories of the Unemployed

The news anchor who dropped the expletives heard around the Web is back to work. Just not at the kind of position he might have hoped. A.J. Clemente, 24, was fired in late April after saying the words, ""F---ing sh-t," on live television. It was his first day at work at NBC affiliate KFYR in Bismarck, N.D. Now...

Companies usually have a tight muzzle on employees when it comes to talking to the press, and even fire workers for embarrassing them in the media. But a San Diego worker at Forever 21, the retail chain, didn't expect to lose her job when she told a local weekly her story of overcoming a life of drug addiction...

By Christina Scotti Two men named Bob. Both are over 50 years old. Both had been working consistently for nearly three decades before losing their jobs in 2009. Both were out of work for more than 99 weeks. Now there is one glaring difference. Bob Greeney is employed. Bob Sullivan is still fighting to get back...

Have you ever been stuck on the "jail" square in Monopoly, because you just couldn't pay the $50 to get out? That's not allowed in real life. Under the U.S. Constitution, you can't go to jail, or be kept in jail, just because you're unable to afford a fine. But it still happens. The American Civil Liberties...

The recession has forced many job seekers to go to extremes. There was the husband who paid for a billboard reading "Please Hire My Wife," and the British guy who paid for a billboard reading "I spent my last £500 on this billboard, please give me a job." Now a woman from Menifee, Calif. is offering...

Susan Burton wasn't surprised when she lost her job as a Realtor. Grief-stricken from the loss of her 5-year-old son, killed in a car accident years earlier, Burton had been on a downward spiral of crack cocaine and alcohol abuse, including stints in prison. "The writing was on the wall," she says of getting...

Fred Sanford was 57 years old when he realized that he needed to come up with a Plan B -- and fast. Working as an Orlando-based financial adviser for Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in 2007 and 2008, he was writing the second chapter of a business career that was highlighted by his work selling loans for...

In theory it should be possible to be both a loyal employee and a responsible person at the same time. So when bartender Twyla DeVito last week noticed one of the regular customers at the American Legion Post in Shelby, Ohio, enter the bar in a heavily intoxicated state, she felt that it was her duty to...

There are plenty of mortgage relief programs out there, from the well-intended to the deceptive and illegal. But one bank is offering real and potentially transformative help to its unemployed mortgage customers, who are struggling to make their payments. Fifth Third Bancorp, based mainly in the Midwest, is...