It's not only the traditional unemployed who fret about jobs. It's college students. Seniors. Military veterans. Single parents. The middle class. It's Americans of all backgrounds, and they all will listen closely to President Obama's jobs speech Thursday evening. They say they need Obama to tell them something -- anything -- that will give them hope and restore faith in the sleepy U.S. economy.

"It is very hard not to live in fear," says Angela Loreto DeMeyer, an unemployed New Yorker.

She is a 99er, one of the nation's job-seekers who has exhausted her 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. "Those of us going without benefits the longest want to hear there will be help on the way in the form of an extension. Many 99ers have already lost everything. Now we just want, and need, to survive."

When Obama addresses the nation, he'll speak to Americans like DeMeyer. He'll also be talking to the 9.1 percent of Americans who are unemployed.