How do you feel about congress cutting unemployment benefits?

@cicerone imposter,

From Forbes.

Quote:

Why The 'Real' Unemployment Rate Is Higher Than You Think

@cicerone imposter,

According to the BLS, the total unemployment rate is in the high 13% to 14%.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

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@Miller,

Miller wrote:

It's time to limit unemployment to 6 months. The longer a person stays on unemployment compensation, the more likely it is that he/she will remain unemployed.

I'm not entirely opposed to this idea, but I think the benefits extension should have been phased out, a week at a time, rather than stripped away all at once.

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@Kolyo,

If there are no jobs to be had, and the worker has to support a family, what do you expect them to do? Starve? Put his family out on the streets?

If our country can pay for wars half way across this planet, and give billions away every year to other countries, we can surely support our own people in need of assistance.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

53% of Recent College Grads Are Jobless or Underemployed—How?
JORDAN WEISSMANNAPR 23 2012, 3:06 PM ET
More
A college diploma isn't worth what it used to be. To get hired, grads today need hard skills.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

If there are no jobs to be had, and the worker has to support a family, what do you expect them to do? Starve? Put his family out on the streets?

No, personally I think we should have a full welfare state.

I just think that keeping an "emergency" extension unemployment benefits indefinitely is the wrong way to go about it.

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@Kolyo,

Your extremes are ridiculous. Evil or Very Mad

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@cicerone imposter,

Europe doesn't consider a full welfare state extreme.

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@Kolyo,

Typo fixed.

Kolyo wrote:

I just think that keeping an "emergency" extension to unemployment benefits indefinitely is the wrong way to go about it.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Unemployment Insurance is not insurance in the sense that a group of people have pooled their resources in order to offer them protection from a shared risk.

Quote:

Contrary to what many progressives believe, employers' income is not infinite. If an employer must pay a tax to fund Unemployment Insurance, that means there is less money available for other expenditures. The logical place to balance this expenditure is in salaries, and so in paying the tax there is less money that might otherwise be paid directly to employees.

These two statements you mean seem to contradict each other.

If I am getting a lower salary in exchange for the lowered risk of being without money should I be unemployed, how is this different than insurance?

I am currently employed, but I benefited greatly from unemployment payments. They made things a lot easier when I needed them. It certainly makes it easier to find a good job when you don't have to worry so much about making ends meet.

To me, unemployment insurance has the same effect as any other sort of insurance. I am willing to accept that I am getting a little less salary now because I know from experience that it not only has benefitted me, but it also benefits the economy in general.

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@Kolyo,

You,

Quote:

...unemployment benefits indefinitely...

do not exist; they have time limits at the state and federal levels.

Quote:

To determine whether an employee is temporarily out of work (that is, that they have worked somewhat recently but no longer have a job), state agencies look to the employee's recent work history and earnings during a stretch of time called the "base period." Only employees who have been working relatively recently can collect unemployment. People who have been out of work for a long time -- such as stay-at-home parents who haven't worked in years -- aren't eligible for unemployment benefits until they have rejoined the workforce for a period of time.

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@cicerone imposter,

You think I'm claiming unemployment benefits don't expire? That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that when we extended unemployment from their shorter 6-month time limit to a longer period with a later time limit, that extension was meant to be a temporary measure. There are many on the left in the US who seem to want to continue that temporary measure indefinitely.

I'm not opposed to a 6-month time limit on unemployment benefits, or to a 12-month time limit, or to a 3-month time limit. Rather, I have the humility to recognize that I don't know what the proper time period is for people to go on collecting unemployment, since I haven't studied the issue in detail.

Here's what does bother me about what the Republicans are doing. From what I gather, the duration of unemployment benefits was extended from 6 months to more than a year. Now Republicans want to cut the time limit for collecting from more than a year back to 6 months -- and they want the change to take place all at once! This will affect a ton of people who have been out of work for between 6 months and a year, and it will -- from what I understand -- hit them all at once. Republicans could, alternatively, phase in a return to the old 6 month time limit as follows: (i) people who have already been unemployed for some months could continue collecting, either for 6 more months or until they reach hit the deadline as it existed in 2013 -- whichever came first; (ii) people who start collecting in 2014 would be limited to 6 months. But if you revert to a 6-month time limit all at once without phasing it in, you spring the change on jobless people, giving them a nasty shock that they haven't planned for and don't deserve.

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@Kolyo,

There are a lot of things people want for our government to "extend." That's not realistic in any program when resources are limited. We all know that governments are good at wasting money; they even lost billions in Iraq - and nobody knows what happened to that money.

As citizens, we are the ones responsible to make sure that our representatives in government a) do not waste money, b) they are responsible fiduciaries of the limited revenues, c) that they prioritize money spent in a reasonable manner, and d) they don't spend more than what is responsible for the time.

We are on the road to recovery from the Great Recession that hurt all economies around the world. Joblessness was caused by Wall Street and the people involved in giving mortgages to people who didn't quality, and the banks and financial institutions built a bubble with their derivatives.

Those who lost jobs can't be blamed for being jobless; that's a problem that's impacted all developed countries. Europe is still struggling.

In times of war or during times of great financial upheavals, it's up to our government to make sure our citizens have enough for shelter and food. That takes precedence over giving billions to other countries, and to support wars half way around the world. Nobody assigned us as the world's police.

Our country has been involved in too many illegal wars that cost trillions of dollars. That ate up much of our resources, and we can't blame the jobless for their plight.

Our government should have our own citizens as priority for any spending.
That includes enough for our children's education, maintaining our infrastructure, and the physical and mental health of our citizens.

That includes extended unemployment benefits when our economy doesn't have the wherewithal to reduce the unemployment rate.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

If there are no jobs to be had, and the worker has to support a family, what do you expect them to do?

Move to where the jobs are, and be willing to take any job you can get would be my answer.
Here in western Ky, the coal mines are always hiring, and the pay and benefits are excellent.
The trucking industry needs around 200,000 new drivers to keep up with demand.

The jobs are there, but many people refuse to do them. People say they want a job in the field the got their college degree in, and that's fine, but until you get that job you need to do whatever it takes to support your family.

So extend unemployment if you have to, but if you turn down a job you lose your benefits.
Some money coming in is better than no money coming in.

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@mysteryman,

You forget it costs money to move to, say, another state. When you arrive, the job has dissappeared. Coal mining is bad for your lungs.

Trucks are boiler rooms on wheels. It is so bad that the trucking companies have huge turnovers (over 50 % per year).

You cannot expect people to take jobs in which the worker is treated like crap.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Finn, You're talking through your hat! Unemployment insurance is a requirement by the tax laws of the state. The employer has no choice whether to provide the insurance or not or to pay the taxes.

No kidding Dick Tracy? Who said otherwise?

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@maxdancona,

Because you didn't choose it, and almost no one who is in favor of extending benefits will admit that the cost is ultimately born by the employee.

You may be content with the arrangement, but it doesn't really matter whether or not you are.

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@Advocate,

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people move for jobs. You go where the work is. That's not too much to ask.

No one is forcing anyone to take a particular job ( at least not yet; give the progressives another two term president and who knows what will happen). What some of use are saying is that if you are out of work you may need to make adjustments to your life, and some may be perceived as sacrifices. Getting paid to wait for the perfect job is not a good thing.

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@Miller,

Miller wrote:

Foofie wrote:

He has referred to that firm as "a Jewish company," not a "Jewish owned company." Telling, in my opinion.

Very telling, indeed. So old CI is off for another vacation. Nothing like big bucks, and a a big ego

Can Hawaii handle two such eminent visitors within such a short time - the President and his Lordship from San Francisco?

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

It benefits the large corporations that can afford future unemployment premiums. The large corporations can then have less competition from the small businesses.

There could be a method to the madness.

1 Reply

How do you feel about congress cutting unemployment benefits?

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