The unemployment benefits debate, Part IV
You’ll recall the far Left attacks on me last summer when I had the audacity on ABC’s This Week to discuss government unemployment benefits and the effect that endless extensions have on reducing the incentive to seek a job.
We revisited the subject in March during the Senate debate over the jobless benefits extension package protested by retiring GOP Sen. Jim Bunning.
And again when the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker resurrected her emotional objections to basic economic facts, which even NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman acknowledged:
The AJC’s Cynthia Tucker blogged today about a testy exchange we had last summer on ABC’s “This Week” regarding government unemployment benefits and the effect that endless extensions have on reducing the incentive to seek a job. Once again, she mistakes standard economic arguments for moral judgments: “Does the right really believe the unemployed are lazy?”
What offended Tucker’s sensibilities was the blunt manner in which I summed up taxpayer-subsidized inducements: “If you put enough government cheese in front of people, they are just going to keep eating it.”
As I said in August and reiterated last week during the Bunning Senate floor showdown, the question is where do we draw the line? There is no such thing as a “temporary” entitlement in Washington and there are precious few politicians willing to challenge the permanent, ever-expanding Nanny State (quoting from the WaPo article: “under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates — the longest period since the program’s inception.”)
None other than Paul Krugman of the Fishwrap of Record acknowledges that generous unemployment benefits reduce the incentive to seek jobs.
As he put it exactly:
“Everyone agrees that really generous unemployment benefits, by reducing the incentive to seek jobs, can raise the NAIRU” [the minimum rate of unemployment consistent with a stable inflation rate].
Which brings us to today’s story in the Detroit News about landscapers unable to find workers because…they’d rather collect unemployment benefits than take a job:
In a state with the nation’s highest jobless rate, landscaping companies are finding some job applicants are rejecting work offers so they can continue collecting unemployment benefits.
It is unclear whether this trend is affecting other seasonal industries. But the fact that some seasonal landscaping workers choose to stay home and collect a check from the state, rather than work outside for a full week and spend money for gas, taxes and other expenses, raises questions about whether extended unemployment benefits give the jobless an incentive to avoid work.
Members of the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association “have told me that they have a lot of people applying but that when they actually talk to them, it turns out that they’re on unemployment and not looking for work,” said Amy Frankmann, the group’s executive director. “It is starting to make things difficult.”
Chris Pompeo, vice president of operations for Landscape America in Warren, said he has had about a dozen offers declined. One applicant, who had eight weeks to go until his state unemployment benefits ran out, asked for a deferred start date.
“It’s like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Pompeo said. “It’s frustrating. It’s honestly something I’ve never seen before. They say, ‘Oh, OK,’ like I surprised them by offering them a job.”
Some job applicants are asking to be paid in cash so they can collect unemployment illegally, said Gayle Younglove, vice president at Outdoor Experts Inc. in Romulus.
“Unfortunately, we feel the economy is promoting more and more people and companies to play the system and get paid or collect cash money so they don’t have to pay taxes,” Younglove said.
No doubt such decisions are being made across the country. And with Democrats pushing for yet another massive unemployment benefits extension, there’s no end in sight:
Congress faces a crush of votes on big-ticket items before the Memorial Day recess, setting up a debate on deficits less than six months before the November elections.
Democratic leaders are looking in the next three weeks to send President Barack Obama a slew of measures that cost more than $200 billion, including a multiyear extension of unemployment benefits, an extension of expiring tax provisions and Medicare doctor payments totaling $180 billion and a $33 billion Afghanistan war supplemental bill…
…The unemployment benefits program, which provides someone with up to 99 weeks of jobless benefits, has received two monthlong extensions in the past two months. It is unclear how much the next extension designed to last for the rest of this year will cost, but the price tag is expected to be in the tens of billions.
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I’m holding out for a job as a male stripper. The fact that I’m 51 years old and 270 pounds isn’t discouraging me.
Just like adding a soft pillow and blanket to the hammock (safety net). No need to hit the snooze button, one is allowed a loooooong sleep rather than a nap!
The research I’ve read goes far beyond “reducing incentive to seek jobs” and solidly into incentivising NOT seeking jobs. Let’s see, do I want a landscaping job [Hot, hard and humble labor at minimum wage] or sit on my a$$ and get a check from the govmint?
The hard thing is how to separate families in trouble and genuinely unable to find employment from the leaches. Not an easy task.
It is just a law of economics…
Subsidizing ANYTHING will result in a surplus of that thing.
Whatever it is, including “Unemployment”.
Hey, if you got it, flaunt it.
Yep, the unemployment compensation system is flawed. Apparently, too much money is being doled out to the unemployed and it creates a disincentive to accept gainful employment.
How the system operates needs to be revisited and iclude possible changes that include, but not limited to, an employer informing the State that an offer has been made to someone on unemployment and lowering the amount paid to the unemployed.
Let’s see. A government can’t have a poll tax to collect money at voting time but a government can buy votes with spending programs and with no way to actually pay for them.
Okay. I just wanted to get that clear.
I don’t get it.
If someone turns down a job, the employer should turn them in and they should lose their unemployment compensation.
Isn’t this how it used to work?
Where can I get some of this “cheese” you’re talking about?
Raises questions?
Raises questions?!!!
From the wording the writer uses, I guess that if the writer let go of a rock, it would raise questions whether the rock would fall to the ground.
This is why illegals “do the jobs that Americans won’t do.” The Americans are too well subsidized by The One to do those jobs.
And the Democrats buy the votes of both groups with our money.
I graduated from school in England in 1976. At that time the country was going through the worst unemployment problem since the 1930′s. People soon caught on that when you could claim unemployment benefits or disability benefits with just the pretense of looking for work, that the system could be gamed. Many collected the ‘dole’ and then worked ‘under the table’. This system created a whole generation who had never held a real job. This was exacerbated by the influx of Indian, Pakistani and Ugandan Asians who were able to come to the country with their British passports and enjoy the largesse of the government handouts. It wasn’t just unemployment benefits that were handed out, but also free government housing. When I was expecting my first child, I saw many young single pregnant girls shopping in the baby stores with their case workers who bought them baby carriages, cribs and all the paraphernalia necessary for a new baby. The report I link to is a study that was done linking the lack of work ethic to generous unemployment benefits. The joke about this study is that it took them 30 years to figure it out. I left England in ’80, it only took me 4.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1218873/Benefits-wrecked-British-work-ethic-new-study-claims.html
I personally know a circuit board repair technician who has intentionally sat on unemployment since July 2009 and has received two extensions since. I am self employed. I have offered him endless repair work to keep him busy and keep his skills finely tuned. He’s an outstanding repair tech. It blows my mind that he would rather collect unemployment. The guy has gotten lazy and addicted to doing nothing, which he calls “freedom”. The United States is upside down. Freedom is getting off your ass and starting your own business. I helped one repair technician, from the same closed company, start his own small repair business. He’s rolling in business and loves the Independence, Freedom and Pride of going on his own. You can’t get an auto loan, home loan, personal loan, credit cards or rent an apartment with “unemployment” as your primary income. Like they say, unemployed people never start looking for work until the final two weeks of benefits running out. By this time, they are not worth hiring.
Absolutey correct.
Along the same idea as the Vicorians’ concept of the “deserving poor”.
BINGO!!!!
It’s not cheese they are handing out….It’s more like prime rib….
Current Misery Index
It was 9.61 under GW last year in office!
The US Misery Index
Misery Index (12.01) = Unemployment rate (9.7) + Inflation rate (2.31)
The misery index was initiated by economist Arthur Okun, an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960′s. It is simply the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate. It is assumed that both a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation both create economic and social costs for a country. A combination of rising inflation and more people out of work implies a deterioration in economic performance and a rise in the misery index.
The Current Misery Index is
12.01 March 2010
High: 21.98 June 1980 inder Carter last year
Low: 2.97 July 1953 under Eisenhower
The extension of unemployment benefits also get people whose benefits have run out to re-apply, accounting for the recent increase in the unemployment rate (not “the economy is improving, so more people are encouraged to look for work” argument the Obamanoids are using).
The part of the story I find interesting, that the difference between working your A$$ off, and collecting ROCKIN’ CHAIR MONEY was 95 bucks… Hell, I’d take a 95 dollar hit to sit home and watch OPRAH…
My husband was on unemployment last year for about 8 weeks, and received a call back from the company he was working for when he was laid off. He turned the job down because we’d made the decision for him to return to school full-time. That was the last week he received unemployment.
Something about this statement in the article is fishy – either the reporter or employer don’t understand the system, or the people there are gaming it.
Actually it already does that. “you’re not suppose to turn down a job and the UE office is suppose to follow up on the jobs you have presented that you have applied for!
Extending unemployment benefits keep the Dems in office by 1) Keeping the unemployed Villagers from coming after them with pitchforks & torches and 2) Creating the fully-dependents/where’s my help/get me off of the roof types that have little or No ambition whatever.
I managed a comic book store years ago. Unemployment people would come to me for a job. Of course, I didn’t have any jobs to offer. Looking over their form, I could see they were seeking jobs in mom and pop stores up and down Main St. Not one try at a large retailer or construction contractor. The system is gamed.
Also brings into play the serious decline of the work ethic in our culture. Personally, I’d rather do the work for the money. Gives you a sense of usefulness and you sleep way better at night. Midwestern Christian values.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 – For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
Ecclesiastes 5:12 – The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.
If the Republicans were smart 9and right about now that seems to be asking a lot out of them) they would enter this debate using Greece as a role model of where we are headed if we do not reign in these endless unsustainable benefits.
Honestly, I do think to some extent unemployment benefits effect whether someone will take a job or not but not entirely. But it says more about our citizens and society than anything else. I have been effected by layoffs as many around this country have. I had unemployment benefits and I drew them, until a job came. I chose the job though I had more money I could have collected. Unfortuantely an easy buck rules the day (thanks Clinton for your contribution to that ideology) Honestly, I do believe it’s the breakdown of our society more than anything else. It all goes hand in hand..or hand to mouth (excuse the pun).
It’s such a rarity that we agree on something, it’s worth noting. Although I hate the thought of increasing the bureaucracy, it would seem that there should be a mechanism to identify and stop subsidizing people who have been offered legitimate employment and turned it down .
I’m holding out for consultant Director position at Citigroup Inc. I’d only have to week 3 weeks a year.
Like this guy
Unemployment benefits should be a short term helping hand, not a multi-year way of life.
See below, and I believe Obama’s vision of cradle to grave socialism is more expansive than the UK Labour Party’s…
Why work when I can get £42,000 in benefits a year AND drive a Mercedes?
Another example of how the nanny state destroys that which it is intended to help.
Take Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC)- a kind and caring notion so the children of single mothers don’t have to suffer. The Problem: 60% of black children were already born out of wedlock. AFDC gives women incentive NOT to marry, and have as many children as possible. The more kidies – the more cash. Children born to single mothers increased dramatically.
It is a given that people will make a career of “gaming the system” in a nanny state. Entitlement mentality – and now we’ve just added the biggest entitlement in history. D’oh!
Please don’t confuse the dims with talk about economics. Math is hard!
In the 1930s, before the widespread establishment of the welfare state, the number of Black children born into two parent families was close to the national average. Just 70 years after slavery, when Jim Crow laws were enforced.
Welfare absolutely drove the explosion in unwed mothers. But, the national average is catching up to the percentage of Black children born in parent families, as Latinos, and even Caucasians have discovered the consequences of being a single mother aren’t bad.
Of course, with the modern MTV generation, many educated in public schools and without exposure to religion, if they trimmed AFDC it would probably only incentivize abortion…
Exactly what I have seen on my occasional visits to England the past 30 years. The wife is 29 years old and grew up during the boom years of never-ending employment benefits, she has no concept of a work ethic.
Flmom-
it is where this country is headed under the Obama Doctrine.
The eventual result is Greece, an unsustainable national debt that can no longer be financed. But we won’t have an IMF heavily supported by US funds or the Germans to bail us out.
We’ll go straight to Weimar Republic style inflation and people on fixed incomes eating grass and tree bark to survive.
If Obama’s anti-American agenda isn’t stopped first.
THis reminds me of an article I read several years ago. Prostitution is legal and regulated in Germany. A lot of debate was generated when a woman receiving welfare benefits was offered a job by a brothel. Can the government stop her benefits if she refuses the ‘position’? I never followed up on the situation.
I agree. I see many parallels to England in the 70′s. The problem is also the disconnect people have when it comes to understanding where the money for this largesse comes from. I have a friend who is Norwegian, on her last visit she was telling me how she had bought a car seat for her infant and it cost less than a third it would in Norway. In the next breath she was telling me that her visit to the US was finaced by the generous maternity and paternity leave her and her husband got from the Norwegian government. I looked at her and said, ” That is the reason car seats cost so much in Norway.” It took a few minutes, but then the lightbulb went off.
Could it be the fact that our president has never done an honest day’s work in his life might have something to do with it? (rhetorical question)
Welfare.
When you consider what this regime has done since occupying the White House — (1) repealing the Clinton-era “Welfare-to-Work” reforms, so that we can go back to multi-generational welfare families, and (2) agitating to lift the income cap for Social Security taxes (thereby converting it from an ersatz “retirement” program into a wealth transfer mechanism), then making “unemployment” benefits effectively permanent is just another purposeful extension of welfare.
When we reach the magic number of 51%+ of adults paying no taxes and depending on assorted forms of welfare to get by, the donks figure that’s going to give them the permanent electoral majority they crave.
The scene from the movie “Gladiator,” in which the wagons full of bread-tossers placate the idle crowds, is becoming a lot like Hope-a-Dope’s vision for post-prosperity America.
Thought you guys might enjoy a fuller treatment of my take on this (latest) crap sandwich…
http://hindenblog1.blogspot.com/2010/05/burn-deemocrats-latest-pay-gone-plan.html
Keep that free Obama money coming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19v5Kjmc8FI
A day doesn’t go by without this administration making me sick to my stomach.
Well, I guess if you can’t get a monthly life time disability check for high blood pressure or “anxiety” attacks, then perpetual unemployment compensation is the next best thing.
I got unemployment for a couple of months in Louisiana in 2008. About $215 a week, maximum benefit.
A person was allowed to turn down work that paid significantly less than what they had been earning. Which is smart, staying on unemployment an extra 2 or 3 weeks to get something near the old paycheck, instead of minimum wage from a fast food restaurant, which makes job hunting rather more difficult, pays off in added tax revenue.
But unemployment should run out at some point, and if one has to take a lower paying job for a while, well, thats life.
I was working offshore, oil went to $10 a barrel. During the various oil price shocks of the 80s and 90s, over half the domestic oilfield workforce lost their jobs. Now, when a GM or a washing machine plant closes, CBS or whoever is there with sob stories. No sob stories for the people, some college educated, some high school dropouts, who lost their jobs, many permanently, in the oil field.
The entitlement mentality is growing stronger every day. We are in deep trouble. Rush said today that people need to ask the question of liberals in town hall meetings (and, I suggest, massive e-mails, letters and phone calls)…Why do you think socialism is going to work here when it is imploding in the rest of the world? Shouldn’t we be taking a lesson from Greece, Spain, etc. Those countries have run out of other people’s money and are now getting bailed out. Who will bail out America? Can you imagine the most powerful, richest republic in the world asking to be bailed out? It WILL happen if we don’t get the progressives out of power and FAST!!
happyscrapper said:
After living in a Socialist country for many years and watching it fail I have asked the same question to people with a Socialist bent. Believe it or not I was told, “well the right people were not in charge to impliment it correctly.” I just have a WTF look on my face and walk away.
Getting some money is getting me by. But that’s just it. I’m getting by.
I can’t save for retirement.
I can’t save for my wife and I to buy a house.
We can’t afford to buy her a new car, which she needs and deserves.
I can’t pay off my student loans or credit cards.
All I can do is buy cat litter and household goods. I’m sick of getting by. I’ve been looking for work ever since I got out of school, to which I had returned to change career paths. I had been working with medical insurance claims, and thank goodness I left. But I’m stuck. I’m angry, not discouraged. Angry at a regime that has so depressed employers and scared them into not hiring. I need work, not handouts.
I think many here will be eating meat, even if it is wild game. Many conservatives are armed and know how to shoot.
I don’t believe they look at it as socialist or marxist. I believe their overpowering FEELINGS of social justice rules here. They don’t look at history because in their minds they can do it better than other countries can because for some unknown reason they also, believe deep down America is the greatest country and that’s why it will work here. They don’t take into consideration many obstacles of their beliefs will never or have ever worked anywhere. This is why they can’t see the forest through the trees now. All over the country progressive abiding states like CA, IL, NJ and MI are failing for the very policies thay have institutied in these progressive states.
We are truly working with the minds of warped character to believe in such a utopia and not reality.
O.K. I’m dense,but it just sunk in.99 weeks is more than 7 years.7 years of unemployment compensation?That is a statistic that I just can’t wrap my head around.
I always thought 1 year was stretching things.Before I retired,I would have anxiety attacks if I were layed off for more than a week,even if I knew my call-back date(and the longest time was six months).
Since I’ve retired I’ve had two jobs and am currently looking for another.
How can any onejustify 99 weeks of u.c.and how could any one live with themselves for collecting it?
Sorry to be such a bore,but this is mind-boggling.
Um, there’s, like, 52 weeks in a year. Soooo…
AS government grows, complexity of interaction grows. Unintended consequences increase and eventually you end up with Greece — or California.
But a question I have pondered many times is this…
when we know…absolutely know…cause and effect, are there really any unintended consequences?
Cloward and Piven were not well-intended thinkers.
as far as i know, people don’t even have to physically GO to the darn unemployment office anymore. They can just send in their request for milk from the gov’t pap from their mommy and daddy’s computer!
they will never leave their rooms.
A biological dictum:
Organisms at rest shall remain at rest.
So, is there any way to report this so that their benefits are immediately terminated?
Look, if Obama things there are 57 states then who is to say how many weeks there are in a year…
Allllrighty now!
Everyone sing together:
99 weeks of fun on the dole
99 weeks on the dole
Kill a week
On a hammock with beer
There’s still 98 weeks of fun on the dole….
(ahem: /s)
Just imagine the blow-back when that hit the papers…!!!!
Bill – never give up on your dream!
The thread is about people who are gaming the system, and the incentives and disincentives that enable them. Would such a person, who is gaming the system, provide the name of an employer to the UE office that made a job offer to them?
Yep, I am cynical.
Yes, the UE office should follow-up. I did not know they were obligated to do so. Do you know if the employer is asked, ‘why they did not hire that particular individual?’
How the system works and implementing positive fixes to make it more effective for the unemployed, employers and taxpayers would benefit us all.
Exactly. In any state I have lived in, if you are receiving unemployment benefits and refuse the offer of a legitimate job you have applied for, you lose the cheese.
I can understand their position but the state is aggravating and prolonging the agony by doling out taxpayer subsidies indefinitely. Sooner or later people have to reenter the workforce and become taxpayers again or the system decays and collapses. This “48% of the population” on-the-dole crap has got to drop down to 10% at most. But the marxist intelligencia will never allow that. They would lose their power.
This is one of the fundamental things socialists never seem to grasp. There really is no secret cash spigot controlled by evil and nefarious “rich” people taking more than their “fair share”. Financial security is not a zero sum game with winners being takers and losers being exploited victims. Wealth is created and earned through intelligent industry, not through confiscation or theft – even if it is laundered through government.
The thing I fear is that the Left has already sent us over the financial abyss here and abroad. If so, then we are truly entering a world of tyranny and despotism the likes of which no living person has seen since Mao, Stalin, and Hitler.
We agree much more than you suggest. I rarely comment on the initial posts of individuals, and that is worth noting. I very well might agree with what another poster has stated, however I reserve my comments to what MM has had to say. Can you imagine, just for a moment, responding to every single post that you agree with, and also disagree with?
Thank you for agreeing that changes to the unemployment system are necessary.
On the tree bark and grass thing for the fixed income.
I see the occasional deer in the subdivision. There is undeveloped forest, and natural gas leases, between subdivisions. If they became the primary protein source when the currency became worthless, I think we’d have a deer free neighborhood in a week or two. Squirrels, possums, armadilloes next. Bird for a while, but unless one has years of shot already stored up, worthless currency will make re-arming expensive.
If one has gone Galt and/or has a few acres to themselves, they can subsistence farm, and supplement with occasional trapped or shot animals.
I suppose being able to make one’s own shot, and having a large quantity of powder on hand is a good thing. Low enough population density, and productive enough land, can probably go prehistoric and start fashioning spears for wild animals.
Near the water, one can catch fish on lures, or net live bait, as long as the tackle holds out.
Then they can cook and eat the bait fish they net.
But the original point, when the hyperinflation kicks in, the quality of life will go in the crapper.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish,and the damn trout will still steal the bait.
Wait! Don’t fix it until I’ve got my share. I can’t start drawing until I’m laid off next week. So wait a couple of years. I mean it is all about “our share”, isn’t it? That’s what the census people told us in all those tax payer paid ads on TV. Weez gots ta gets our fair share, right?
*sarcasm off* No, I’ve never been a bum and I’m not about to start. Course I could enter politics. Oh, wait, I never have been a bum and am not about to start.
When you don’t have a cell phone, cable, a pack of smokes or a fifth of JB AND the cat is DINNER, then you’ll know really poverty. Like the Obama’s suffered in Chicago before his book was published. /sarc off
That’s why I feed stray cats – JUST IN CASE I need something for the BBQ.
BTW, Chap, which wine goes best with BBQ meow-meow?
PatriotRider,
I considered running for something here in CA but realized I’m not Democrat, gay or rich. The only thing going for me is that I am a woman, but too good looking to run in CA. These people only elect stupid, butt-ugly socialist.
Not an ice-cube’s chance in the Hot Place of winning…
A friend of mine started his rebar construction company from scratch with five employees. He and his wife have worked their butts off for years, and they now employ between 150 to 200 men, depending on the number of jobs they have going.
The company is non-union but the pay is excellent, with huge Christmas bonuses all around. The men even get a big bonus for a job well done.
Guess who my friends hire because Americans would rather collect unemployment than tie rebar.
I may have to sell everything and start over but I’ll go to work like a man. (No offense ladies) I’ve worked since I was 16 for everything that I have. My mama always said, “you don’t work, you don’t eat”.
BTW Living- Cat is the other white meat so a white or blush goes well with it. But by the time you get to the point of eating it you can’t even afford Two Buck Chuck.
You mean I don’t have to work to pay my mortgage!!??
HOT DAYAM! WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
/sarc off.
Not these days. Give a man a fish and he says, “What the f&* is this? A fish? Get that stinkin’ thing outta here and gimme some steak man.”
Only a radical lib would think that 99 weeks of unemployment was not a bit over the edge. Of course this reduces the incentive to get a job and moves the country a bit closer to breaking the bank.
I see both sides of the argument here but let me tell you my story but first people seem to forget that all employers pay in a “unemployment tax” pool.
I worked for a company for 14 years working my way up with a very strong work ethic. After 14 years I was told my job was going to India. I was forced to train my replacements and yes I said replacements because it was taking eight of them to do the job I alone was doing. If I did not train them I would receive no severance even though I gave this company 14 years of my life which said company made a lot of profit off of my work. Now this was at the end of 2007 and I was lucky enough to find another position within three weeks (Jan 2008). At the beginning of 2009 I and 20 other employees were let go because of the sudden downturn in the economy with no end in sight. So here I was in the span of a year laid off twice.
To my surprise even with all of the experience I have it took me over seven months to find another job with less pay and no benefits. I was told that one position I applied for had over 100 applicants. Currently I’m forced to work in a company that imports over half of their workers from India as contractors instead of giving the jobs to Americans.
During my layoff period I was online everyday sending off resumes and making phone calls but it still took me seven months to find a new job. I know other people who were trying just as hard as I was and it took them over a year to find another job. If it wasn’t for extended unemployment benefits my ex-coworkers would have not been able to feed their families and some would have lost their houses. Don’t even get me started on what happens if you happen to have a special needs child and you have no benefits as I saw happen to an ex-coworker who was laid off.
Why is it in the whole debate of high unemployment in this country no one will address the fact that there are 100s of thousands of people here on work visas that could be sent home so these jobs could be put back in American hands and lower the unemployment rate which in turn would raise the collected tax revenue.
The whole debate of a global economy is BS because the company I’m currently working for makes all of their profits from American citizens as their product is only available to US citizens.
If I sound bitter or jaded I am because what I see going on in my country makes me bitter and jaded. It used to be if you did you’re job well and the company made profits you could count on some job security, that is not the case anymore.
Someone did make an argument here I fully agree with, if you are offered a position and turn it down all employers should report it to the unemployment office and if the unemployment office determines the position and salary are comparable to your previous position you should lose all benefits period. I work in IT so if Burger King offered me a job that would not be comparable.
On a final note I was forced to take less pay because with employers knowing with so many people out of work they have you by your balls and will accept less. In 2009 I paid 1/2 of the taxes that I did in 2008, with unemployment this massive is it any wonder that both local, state and federal governments are running out of money.
Brian
RE: subsistence farming.
I’ve heard that one buck and 4 does can provide enough meat for a family…
plus all the lucky rabbit’s feet you’d ever want.
Church and charity’s role of helping the helpless is being grasped by Government. Compassionate, hands-on giving by a local Church has a better
chance of helping truly needy , while filtering out the leeches and helping them turn their lives to productive ends.
Both the ‘giver’ and recipient of Govt charity lose a measure of liberty in the Obamanomics system. The only folks who prosper under this are the ones who grasp power and money and use it to , essentially, pay people for voting for them.
Liberal dems like the AJC’s Cynthia Tucker love the feeling of compassion they get from
Nice, except those unemployment benefits don’t look so evil when you’re out of work. I say this as a committed Conservative who votes Republican and supports the Tea Party Movement.
Many of us, most especially men have been decimated economically by this some-call-it-a-recession-but-if-you’re-out-of-work-it’s-a-depression.
Unemployment benefits don’t “reduce the incentive to work”. They reduce the raging panic at seeing your economic reality crash before your eyes.
When the economy comes back, some of the jobs will come back. Until then, unemployment benefits make the survival-difference.
Think about that the next time you want to bash “the incentive to work”.
If you write the checks, they will come.
So stop the endless jobless benefits.
Many people will not bother to get a job unless they have to.
It’s unfortunate, but because of the losers, people in need will need to suffer in order to weed out the losers looking for a free ride.
Life is tough. Suck it up.
Yes… they do.
Too many people on unemployee MAGICALLY get a job just as the benefits run out.
CMHDude, check out NumbersUSA. The adverse effect on employment in this country by the “100s of thousands of people here on work visas” is a subject often dealt with by that organization.
Best wishes!
Mind if I repost that elsewhere?
That story is a great way of conveying the truth about bog govt.
That’s exactly among the things that need to happen.
And better ways to weed out the people deliberately milking the system so they can sit on their ass while people in your position suffer greatly.
It’s maddening and our politicians are willfully allowing it to happen… so they can keep THEIR jobs.
I still don’t think unemployment would be so high if our government hadn’t done so much to eliminate American manufacturing jobs over the last twenty-plus years. Where are the new jobs coming from? That’s the question that nags me the most.
Little Ma said:
CMHDude, check out NumbersUSA. The adverse effect on employment in this country by the “100s of thousands of people here on work visas” is a subject often dealt with by that organization.
Little Ma,
I’ve actually been active on NumbersUSA for several years as I could see the writing on the wall long long before I was worried about being unemployed. When you keep shipping jobs overseas with no limit in sight I knew it would catch up with me sooner or later and it did.
Thanks
Brian