It’s a Living: The Unemployment Line

Part of the “It’s a Living” series created by Videopolis based on Studs Terkel’s book Working, which focuses on workers in Chicago. This tape is the record of a single hour at the state unemployment compensation office in Logan Square on the city’s northwest side. People in the line talk about what it’s like to be out of work as they deal with bureaucratic entanglements of their cases. As the program progresses, a family finally receives the check they needed to survive–after eight attempts.