Chances are you've heard the statistics: the country's unemployment rate has reached a 14-year high of 6.5%. As many 10.1 million people have been laid of and are looking for work in what many say is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

But these are not just numbers to be rattled off by politicians and pundits. Behind these statistics are real people, and their numbers are growing. They're from all over the country and from all socioeconomic, educational and professional groups. And they don't need graphs and charts to tell them how bad it is out there.

"[The] hardest hit areas are automotive, banking, housing, construction, financial sector ... a real risk going forward this holiday season is retail, but it's spreading into new areas of the economy," said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger Gray & Christmas, an outplacement consulting firm in Chicago. "Everybody's affected. That's just the way it is."
FOXNews.com asked readers to tell us how it really is. These are their stories about the challenges they're facing.

Taryn Johnson, 26, from Northampton, Mass., a college student and single mother of two, said she joined the ranks of the unemployed early this month and is now on welfare.

"I was struggling every day to even keep food on the table for my children, and now have to resort to the state to keep my apartment, as well as food stamps to keep up the food on the table," she said. "I don't know how I am going to make ends meet, being a single mother in college, almost finished with my degree, with pretty much no one to turn to in my time of need. My brother is serving in Iraq, while my mother finishes her own college degree in nursing."

Even those holding degrees are losing their solvency.

"People with lower levels of experience and education are being hit harder and faster, and now it's started to reach up the educational scale," said Heidi Shierholz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "There's no positive way to spin this right now. It's tough."

Christopher Hickey, of Delran, N.J., has been struggling to support his wife and three children since June, when his company consolidated its offices and his warehouse supervisor position was eliminated.

He is actively looking for full-time work, but he has had few offers for interviews. "Even though I am 'marketable' (college degree, years of experience in industry), jobs of comparable salary and which reflect my capabilities are not abundant in this region of New Jersey," Hickey, 36, wrote. "I have been collecting unemployment since September, and I feel disgraced when I see the UI checks arrive in the mail"

He said he's had little luck scoring even an interview, and he's not alone; the job market is flooded with applicants.
Joel Sarfati, executive director of 40Plus of Greater Washington, a career counseling nonprofit in Washington, D.C., said he's seen enrollment triple in recent months. "What seems to be so unusual is the diversity: five, six different types of professions. We're in the early stages of seeing lawyers show up.

"Lawyers! Who would've ever thought that? I see, as the economy goes south it's being equal opportunity."

There are 10.1 million unemployed, according to the Department of Labor statistics -- but there are twice as many people looking for work.

It no wonder that the line for a recent New York job fair wrapped around two city blocks. "Attendance at our career fairs is up 33% year over year," said Allison Nawoj, a career adviser with CareerBuilder.com, the online job search engine that hosted the job fair.

"And 2008 average CareerBuilder.com unique visitors are up 6% from 2007."

She said there are currently over 28 million resumes posted to the site, and that number's only going to go up.

Houston-based career coach Bonnie Monych says that sort of competition worries her clients. "They're asking me, 'What can I do right now?' If the number goes up and up, there'll be more and more people unemployed and more competition in the marketplace."

Among the job-seekers is Margo Wagner, 52, of Santa Barbara, Calif. She filed for unemployment, something she'd never imagined doing. "I have over 25 years combined in the mortgage lending real estate industry and was laid off June 30, 2008, from a job of 10 years," she said.

Wagner used to earn $25 an hour plus commission as an Escrow Officer with Chicago Title Company, and now she's trying to make do with her weekly $400 unemployment check. She said she went on an interview for a $13-an-hour medical receptionist position last week. She didn't get it.

"I have been diligently looking for a job daily. Literally anything will do, but with my experience largely in the real estate arena, there is nothing, and what lower-paying jobs that are out there, they tell me I'm over qualified," she said.

Wagner's been fending off daily calls from Countrywide Home Loan's "Work-out Department," she says, because she's been unable to make payments on her family's vacation home on Catalina Island.

"I'm way past the three-month deadline. They could foreclose on me tomorrow if they wanted," she said.
"Even people who were comfy last summer are more worried that the problems in the economy could sneak up and get them," Challenger said. "It's not a pretty picture, is it?"

Those who've found jobs recently are still worried, especially those will health issues like 48-year-old Cheryl Hauck.
After she worked for eight years at the FYE Distribution Center in North Canton, Ohio, the building was closed.

"I had just had back surgery and [was] barely walking due to very extreme back problems," she wrote. "I had to go on COBRA health insurance, which cost $712 a month, for six months. Then I found a new job and worked six months before I got new health insurance, which now costs me $487.00 a month. I am taking home less money than I ever have in my life, due to the health insurance."

She said her new company has laid off four people. "Needless to say I AM REALLY SCARED FOR MY FUTURE," she wrote, with emphasis, "not only because of my job and my finances, but for my health."

There's a lot of fear about a future experts say is grim, at least for the next few years.

"There is no sign that this is bottoming out. All signs point to accelerating and getting worse through next year," Shierholz said. "Unemployment will likely continue increasing for the next two years. Working families are really in for a long haul here, there's no question."

All of this is taking an emotional toll on the millions struggling to survive.

Marty Nemko, a San Francisco Bay Area career coach, says he's seen his clientele shift from burgeoning entrepreneurs and corporate sharks to what he describes as, "I'm a middle-aged white guy and I'm being downsized and I'm scared to death."
He said he sees clients from all professions, and he rattled off a long list of job titles from nearly every industry and placed them all into the "scared to death" category. "I've seen it more and more in my practice, no question," Nemko said. "There's a lot more emotionality to it these days. I do a lot more hugging than I used to."

Sarfati said the center's participants finds solace in each other's company. "People have a place to go where they are not going through the lonely act of job seeking," he said. It acts as emotional support."

But, despite the fear, many feel the bad times won't last forever.

"It was really nice to talk about all this. I do realize I'm not alone," Wagner said optimistically. "It'll get better, I know it will. It has to. For me and my family ... for all of us."