Jobless Americans will have few options as benefits expire

The one thing I agree with is this should be more in the hands of the states. Reason being - the unemployment rate can vary greatly state by state. Where I live, employers cannot hire people. My daughter has gotten two job offers after just talking to people over the phone - employers are desperate for people.

My husband is a recruiter - he hires both temporary and permanent help. He has so many job openings but people do not want to be hired. He has had countless situations where he hired someone - or was on the cusp of hiring of them and they bag out. It seems many of these people are using this as saying they tried to get a job in order to keep getting the additional unemployment pay. And these jobs are at all levels from low skilled to high skilled positions.

Obviously not everyone is like this - however, look at this way - if you could stay at home with your kids and earn enough without working, wouldn't you? This is the current way it is within my state. Now obviously it may not be the same every where. We do need to help people --- When they need it --- but not pay someone for not working. To me, I think the states are in the best position to determine how their particular economy is working.

My other thought was to provide bonuses to the businesses and to those that enter the workforce again to encourage both the hiring and to start working again. People working and businesses hiring will help the economy much more than to give additional pay to those who are not working. To be clear I am not advocating to eliminate unemployment - that should still be in play as is needed, but there should be more incentive to hire and to work - the focus should be to get people into jobs -- unemployment pay should be temporary to help those in need.

You must not live in Texas.

Nope!

How is the unemployment in Texas?

The other thought of leaving things to the states, is the cost of living. The extra $500 can have a much greater impact for someone say from Mississippi vs someone say in New York. So to have a blanket amount for extra $500 in one place can really help quite a bit whereas for someone else it could have little impact.

I always thought similar for federal taxes. It really is not fair on the tax brackets - as the cost of living can be significantly different where you live. Someone struggling to survive in Mass - might be living well in Alabama.

Over here public sector workers get extra for working in London, it’s called London weighting.

It can be quite significant, schools on the outskirts of London that still attract it make sure they mention it in job adverts.

We have the same thing here for people working in the north. A gallon of milk can be 4x what it is in the rest of Canada - everything has to be trucked or flown up there. Even Northern Alberta were paying way over the minimum wage (25% more) to people working at McDonald's, gas stations, etc. And the rentals are crazy, too, due to the limited number of apartments, trailers, etc. Across the NWT border, it's called the Northern Living Allowance and it's regulated by the Territory.

Typically those in more expensive parts of the country do get paid more on average even those in say a McDonalds will get paid higher than min wage. Also states set their own minimum wage (of course it has to be higher than the national one).

But things like tax ranges are all on the national level. So say someone in Mississippi would earn $50k they would be doing pretty well whereas in MA you wouldn't be able to buy a house. But yet on the national level you would both pay the same rate of income tax. This also impacts how much you get in other aid - like financial aid for college.

Typically even with the higher wages living in some where that the cost of living is higher does not compensate for that higher cost of living. So for instance when I used to work at a different company and they had an office in Texas in which people worked for me - those at an analyst level could afford a much larger house than I could where I lived at a sr. manager role. Housing prices are crazy high where I live.

My mother lived in Yellowknife for a dozen years. She was the equivalent of the Deputy Minister for the Ministry for Women. So, she had a government job and got a government-subsidized condo. Without it, she couldn't have held that job. The rents were incredibly high because of the scarcity. She was well-paid, but also got the NLA (Northern Living Allowance). My sister and her husband bought a double-wide trailer, very common up there, and they paid $300K for it and that was 25+ years ago (when the interest rates were criminal). But there was also the high price of food. I visited for 3 months and was never so glad to get out of anywhere. It was either clouds of mosquitos or snow. And ugly country. Flat, unexciting... I much preferred the Yukon.

Was it the Yukon where you were a camp cook?

Yes - on Lake Inconnu (which is the name of a fish). You have a great memory, roger

You were a notable presence even back then.