But Art Shostack, a retired Drexel University professor and futurist who specialized in labor issues, said that all jobless workers from Philadelphia's lost generation have the same basic problem: "The sands have shifted under their feet."
By that, Shostack said, he means that high-school students were not trained a generation ago to be on-their-feet thinkers, but rather "were schooled to be order-accepters" - exactly what employers are not looking for in 2010.
Iowa's Leicht said that the problem even runs deeper - too many employers are seeking state-of-the-art knowledge that they believe comes only from young job-seekers just out of school, and thus place little or no value on the years of experience accumulated by older workers.
"We've created an environment that only rewards the now - not the future or the past," Leicht said, and that is making job-seeking even more difficult for experienced workers. That's in addition to a new wrinkle that some employers have added since 2008: that they take applications only from people who have a job somewhere else.
Leicht said he believes that about half the jobs that have been lost are the result of broad social change - automation as well as the inevitable globalization of the economy - but the other half is the result of bad U.S. policy, such as rewarding investors who are not creating jobs.
He said that a policy that granted employers generous tax breaks for retraining and hiring older workers would reap big societal dividends - if the gumption existed for such a major new government program. "You'd have to have the political will to do it for a decade," Leicht said, "and with no results for the first year or two."
Both Leicht and Shostack also said that Philadelphia workers should be ready to pack up and move anywhere in the country - Shostack even suggested relocating abroad - to find a job that's the right fit. That may be easier said than done; studies have shown that Pennsylvania is the most "place-bound" state in the country, meaning that fewer natives move away than anywhere else.
That's certainly been the case for South Philadelphia's Thomas, who's stayed in the neighborhood his entire life but whose tone is increasingly tinged with the frustration of seeing no light at the end of his tunnel.
"It does seem that way, that you have a better chance of getting a job when you already have a job," he said, adding with a sigh: "It's been a struggle. I never thought I'd be out of work this long."
