Well, well, well: Lib columnist discovers unemployed “gaming” jobless benefits
Last year, the Soros monkeys and liberal columnist Cynthia Tucker attacked me for stating an obvious economic truth about endless unemployment benefits. They incentivize more unemployment. It’s not a moral judgment. It’s just a fact.
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].
Now comes first-hand reporting from liberal columnist Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald that yes, in fact, there are some unemployed people out there responding to perverse government incentives and gaming the system to stay on the dole. (h/t Jules Crittenden):
Sure, many unemployed people want and need their government checks — but yesterday I talked to a bunch who told me they support Sen. Scott Brown on his vote that may take away their own benefits Christmas Day.
I was stunned.
I’d started out the day reaching out to a dozen unemployed workers to ask whether they’d urge Brown to change his mind and extend benefits even if that adds to the national deficit.
I actually spoke with eight of them. Only two said yes unequivocally.
The first was a 52-year-old civil engineer out of work since April 2007 who wants Brown to extend benefits “at least through the holidays and until spring time,” said Mark, who asked that his last name not be used. “I hate being unemployed. I hate collecting unemployment. Now I have to take money out of my 401.”
The second, Greg Vasale, 61, has been out of work for 18 months and said he was for extending benefits, even though they won’t help him much. Why? He played by the rules. He never refused work. But that meant, particularly cruelly, that when he took a job for less money and lost it, his unemployment was cut in half. Any day now he may lose his car.
But the rest of the dozen who e-mailed my 96.9 FM morning radio show? In a startling indication of distrust, they spoke of their fellow unemployed workers “gaming the system” —collecting unemployment while working under the table.
Unlike rule-following Greg Vasale, who paid the price for honesty, some admitted turning down low-paying jobs. They suspected others of lying about even trying to find work. “You used to have to go down and prove your were looking,” said one. “Now you just send in a form.”
Said another: “People should have to do some kind of public service or volunteer (to get unemployment) to weed out the lazy ones.”
Another person I spoke with knew of plumbers refusing work “because they’re getting $400 to $600 a week and are eligible for Mass Health. If they get a job but have to pay for health care, they’re worse off. “
Where are the Soros monkeys now?
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I have heard about this happening here in WA ST too. A friend of mine was hiring a few months back for a receptionist position. He told me how many of the people he tried to hire asked if they could start in a month or two months cause that was when their benefits ran out. From their point of view, they would make nearly as much on unemployment as they would going to work, but without the communting, cost of gas, or having to get up before noon.
racist! LOL
plus whatever they can get under the table–new construction plumbing is way down but service and repair is actually up. Unemployment Insurance like anything else will evolve it’s own scam artists–the longer it goes on the bigger the scams become. Unemployment officials have an incentive to weed out a few, very few, to make their efforts look legit. But the unemployed-right or wrong-are their meal ticket.
But as Dear Speaker Nancy said: they people are needed to vote Democrat. Unemployment is good for the economy-it keeps her in office.
They’re off doing what they always do: sitting around, picking lice off of each other and eating them.
And flinging poo. Don’t forget the poo-flinging…
There’s a young lady, that works for me, whose live in boy friend was laid off about a year ago. I asked her a few months ago if he had found a job yet and she told me he couldn’t find one that paid as much as his unemployment so he didn’t take any of them. But he was working with her brother under the table. So they were doing good. Actually bought a newer car last month and he’s still unemployed. How does that happen?
Thanks, Michelle, for your efforts to bring sunshine to the rampant fraud by the Feds. This is also true of SSI (disability payments) as well. I know someone who, after six months of very tough cancer treatments, could have worked. Instead he did not get a job as he liked the free checks coming in every month FOR FIVE YEARS from the state—who never checked on his status.
Apparently the liberals have never seen the Seinfield show where George games the unemployment office, claiming to work in latex at Mandelay Industries. He even sort of bribes the officer by exclaming over the beauty of her daughter and taking her out.
Why work when you can get some free cash from Obama’s Stash? The Government “owes” them [sarcasm]. I realize many do not feel this way, and being laid off and without a job is demoralizing. But a large number of people like to take the “free stuff” not realizing it is not free, but on the backs of America’s taxpayers.
Milton Freidman type economics should be a mandatory course in all highschools, just as science and math are.
Future voters could learn about the consequences of price-ceilings and price-floors, subsidies, taxes, profits, tariffs, minimum-wage mandates etc.
I collected unemployment for about 4 months several years ago when I was laid off as a result of 9/11.
I think I got about $325 a week at that time, which I understood was the maximum benefit.
In my case, I found work a month after my severance package ran out. But it was tight those last few weeks. We burned through all our savings even with the extra $325 a week.
There is no way someone can remain on unemployment for 99 weeks at $325 a week. You would have to game the system to last more than a few months.
Government interference in the market ALWAYS causes dislocations in the market and that includes the labor market.
In general, leftards don’t have brains.
Currently, I’m unemployed and living in Colorado Springs. As a military spouse, I’m used to having to adapt to changing situations and moving at the drop of a hat when my husband was reassigned. I’m used to having to resign from a job and starting over…. and over…. and over again.
I’ve never taken unemployment benefits. NEVER. I’m not rich. I’m not getting part of Obummer’s “secret stash” of cash. I never qualified for unemployment as a military spouse. You’re pretty much excluded if you have to leave a job for relocation. Relocation is becoming a fact of life for many people, including me and my husband. This is nothing new.
This burns me. I’m not surprised that people are gaming the system and using unemployment for the handout it really is. Employers pay for it.
I’d like to have these people who are taking unemployment face those who never took it or didn’t qualify it and had to regroup and take a job, any job, to make ends’ meat. It must be nice to know that Uncle Sugar can give you a nice, fluffy pillow to protect you from the injustices of life.
One way to look at the problem is that the large and persistent unemployment is the direct result of government intervention into the employment market. Get rid of the costly regulations (a redundancy, I know), minimum wage laws, affirmative action and the lot and the problem will go away. But of course the administration, while it is mildly distressed by the effects, is adamant about keeping and expanding the causes. The republicans will, of course, not touch any of them either. So the government (taxpayers) cannot be let off the hook. They caused it. They have to deal with it.
Warning: Very insensitive comment to follow.
Allow me to elaborate. Look, I’m sorry that taxpayers are getting stuck with the bill, but the bulk of them are economically illiterate and voted for Obama in any event. So they can cry me a river. Economic reality is harsh and heartless, who would have thought?
Taxpayers — I’m talking to you — man up and read up (start with Thomas Sowell), that is educate yourselves. This holiday season, remember there is no Santa Claus.
Much like giving freebies away to illegal aliens, extending unemployment benefits only encourages unethical people to game the system. There is no incentive to actually try to find work.
Half of the people on unemployment are likely married in a two income household. The government shouldn’t guarantee anything monetarily. If they want to lower unemployment, the first thing they should do is cut unemployment benefits.
If someone is getting 1500 dollars a month for doing nothing, why would they choose to work for 2000 dollars a month? If they didn’t get the 1500, they’d gladly work for 2000.
Everything our government has done disincentives success. You get benefits if you fail, and if you succeed you pay more.
I don’t understand why there isn’t more noise about the drilling moratorium. That is something SPECIFICALLY OBAMA is doing that COSTS JOBS. If Obama cares about jobs, he wouldn’t demand a blanket oil drill ban. Imagine Saudi Arabia or Venezuela or Iran demanding an end to oil drilling. . . like Vegas demanding an end to gambling.
Obama treats Americans as the enemy. Local and state governments can not afford oil this high for school buses and police cars. Gas is a taxpayer cost that takes money away from school kids in the bus gas budget and takes money away from police and firefighters because they have to buy oil.
Our government is punishing America. . . and nobody seems to care.
incentize or incentivize?
Encourage.
The simple fact of the matter is that liberals are running out of excuses for what is going on in Washington—-mostly because it’s starting to affect their lavish lifestyles from the rich Gates and Buffet down to the poor inner-city minorities, college students and coal miners of the South, not because it’s a matter of facts of common sense.
Just remember that when you hear about all this compromise and middle-of-the-road garbage.
It’s do or die time.
As a Boston Herald daily reader, I find that Margery is seldom enlightened on her own. Instead, she is only “stunned” when she bothers to ask the average man on the street what people really feel about most topics. I suspect this is the case with most liberal columnists. I’d also bet she’d be “stunned” if she discovered that some people actually like Sarah Palin, one of her frequent targets.
Well, at least Ms. Eagan finally got a clue. Anyone who knows the welfare system knows that welfare begets welfare. There are entire families on the dole whose members have NEVER worked a day in their lives. The endless unemployment extensions were just like that.
I don’t use the word “entitlements”. Words mean things, and there is nothing, NOTHING!, entitled about it.
If this woman is surprised that some people will game the system for their own benefit then she REALLY needs to get out more!
Nothing focuses the mind better for the job hunt than a wife eight months pregnant and having to pickup COBRA health insurance payments! Been there done that!
Reminds me of a joke I once heard:
Do you know what the “Trail of Tears” is?
A bunch of welfare recipients were kicked off the dole and told to go to the employment agency.
(Pa dum DUM!)
Everytime I’m listening to 96.9 WTKK in Boston and Margery Egan and Jim Braude come on, I can’t switch away fast enough! Those two vacuous ninies drive me insane!
meant ninnies
Hey Michelle, don’t you just hate it when you’re right all the time? Too bad you can’t go back and force these libs to pay up when they finally get half a clue after they’ve trashed you.
I remember quite a few times while growing up when my family was hard up for cash. My Dad was an enlisted man with 5 kids. School lunch cost 35 cents per day (this is L O N G before schools ever thought of serving breakfast) and, multiplied by 5 kids, was a lot of money back then.
We took lunch every day. Sandwiches, left-overs, whatever my Mom could make.
Years later, when yours truly was the Dad, there were times early on when I was eligible for food stamps and reduced lunch fare for my kids. I, too, was an enlisted man (only 3 kids).
I refused. I could not bear to take the food stamps and school lunch without visions of my father. The stigma of accepting assistance was still in my blood. We struggled.
The problem with most unemployment and welfare programs is that the stigma has been removed. Just like teenage pregnancy, it is perfectly acceptable.
I know that unemployment is a necessity for many Americans. But you’re supposed to pull out the IV when the drugs are no longer needed.
This really needs the emphasis of the famous line, “SHOCKED, SHOCKED I SAY, THAT THERE IS GAMBLING GOING ON HERE”!!! This scam of unemployment has been going on since unemployment payments first started… The incentive to work comes from NO money coming in, not just lower total monies available… The unemployed will always weigh the totals when offered a position… Starts with what time do I have to get up??? Followed by how much for gas to get there??? Next, how much for lunches??? Then how much for deductions??? Take home versus unemployment check… If the difference is 50-60 bucks, stay home and collect “ROCKING CHAIR” money… Pretty simple, any questions??? Oh, and it is really BIG in high pay-out states like California, versus the paltry sum you may get from a state like Arizona…
Paying people to not work is as stupid as paying farmers to not grow certain crops because it will drive down the price. A gallon of milk costs more than a gallon of gasoline because we pay people keep producing a product which we don’t need. We don’t have to subsidize football teams but we do have to subsidize opera. WHY? We don’t have to subsidize Dancing With The Stars, but we do have to subsidize PBS. WHY? IF ENOUGH PEOPLE DON’T WANT YOUR PRODUCT, GO OUT OF BUSINESS!
Rogue–sounds like you do have a job, and that you did it well.
There’s nothing new here. I drew unemployment in the 1970′s at the insistence of my former employer who had to reduce head count during the Carter years.
I was one of the few who actually looked for another job, although at that time it had to be a job in your field, and there weren’t too many food chemist jobs around.
I also reported my tiny income from babysitting the neighbor’s kids, which prolonged the time I could draw unemployment.
There were plenty of double dippers back then, too.