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Discussion Point: Unemployment Benefits

Zam-Zam

Senator
Straight-forward, simple question: Should the number of weeks one can receive unemployment benefits be finite or infinite? If you answer the former, what would you consider a reasonable length of time before benefits are cut-off?
 
I say the whole solution set is missing the boat. We should be hiring these people to do work that is needed. Short term unemployment should last for say, 2 years. After that, you get an option to join some kind of government work program that fits the job with your experience and skills. Say you are a programmer that cannot find a job. The government hires you after 2 years to mentor kids in high school or in community colleges. Solutions like this could keep people in the workforce while they are in tight straights and help the nation out at the same time. We need to be more creative.
 

fairsheet

Senator
We might ask the parallel question of..."How long should a taxcut last?' The top-posted defecation is even more malodorous than his usual, in that he doesn't seem to understand that unemployment benefits AND tax rates, are specific to any particular point in American socioeconomic time.
 

Corruptbuddha

Governor
Straight-forward, simple question: Should the number of weeks one can receive unemployment benefits be finite or infinite? If you answer the former, what would you consider a reasonable length of time before benefits are cut-off?
Finite.

10 weeks.

Period.
 

Corruptbuddha

Governor
I say the whole solution set is missing the boat. We should be hiring these people to do work that is needed. Short term unemployment should last for say, 2 years. After that, you get an option to join some kind of government work program that fits the job with your experience and skills. Say you are a programmer that cannot find a job. The government hires you after 2 years to mentor kids in high school or in community colleges. Solutions like this could keep people in the workforce while they are in tight straights and help the nation out at the same time. We need to be more creative.
2 years?

2 WHOLE years of not working?

How is that even possible?
 

ya-ta-hey

Mayor
Straight-forward, simple question: Should the number of weeks one can receive unemployment benefits be finite or infinite? If you answer the former, what would you consider a reasonable length of time before benefits are cut-off?
Mr. Zam,

40 weeks and that is being generous. If someone can't find a job after 10 months, they aren't trying.
 
Mr. Zam,

40 weeks and that is being generous. If someone can't find a job after 10 months, they aren't trying.
Who are you to judge when someone is not trying? In California, you must fill in a card every two weeks showing who you contacted, what happened, etc. If you do not fill it in and return it, no money. Two years is a good enough time to let someone have a chance at keeping their house and location while looking for work. Do you want a person to sell everything they have and take a job in retail making 10 bucks an hour just so you can feel good? I was out of work for 11 months, it's not easy finding a job sometimes. Of course, I could have taken a job that was offered at zero base, no benefits and the promise of millions in commissions if I wanted to work my ass off in a sweatshop. No thanks. This reveals one of the biggest problems with some economic thought, that labor is a moveable feast just looking for the right crumbs. Keynes argued quite correctly that labor will not move in direct proportion to supply because people are very reluctant to take a lower paying job until every option is exhausted. Since I have paid into the system on every paycheck since my first one in 1971, I think I deserve the dough. It kept us in our house. Are you sitting on millions waiting to buy up depressed assets?
 

ya-ta-hey

Mayor
Who are you to judge when someone is not trying? In California, you must fill in a card every two weeks showing who you contacted, what happened, etc. If you do not fill it in and return it, no money. Two years is a good enough time to let someone have a chance at keeping their house and location while looking for work. Do you want a person to sell everything they have and take a job in retail making 10 bucks an hour just so you can feel good? I was out of work for 11 months, it's not easy finding a job sometimes. Of course, I could have taken a job that was offered at zero base, no benefits and the promise of millions in commissions if I wanted to work my ass off in a sweatshop. No thanks. This reveals one of the biggest problems with some economic thought, that labor is a moveable feast just looking for the right crumbs. Keynes argued quite correctly that labor will not move in direct proportion to supply because people are very reluctant to take a lower paying job until every option is exhausted. Since I have paid into the system on every paycheck since my first one in 1971, I think I deserve the dough. It kept us in our house. Are you sitting on millions waiting to buy up depressed assets?
Mr. Wolley,

I can. If someone doesn't have a job after a month, let alone 10 months, they aren't trying.
 

SW48

Administrator
Staff member
Supporting Member
Straight-forward, simple question: Should the number of weeks one can receive unemployment benefits be finite or infinite? If you answer the former, what would you consider a reasonable length of time before benefits are cut-off?
I like the 26 weeks.

Then if certain economic numbers show it is a recession then make it a year.
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
I like the 26 weeks.

Then if certain economic numbers show it is a recession then make it a year.


That seems reasonable. I believe in helping people out, but at some point they have to make an effort to help themselves. I'm 56 years old, and I've always had a job of some kind since I was 14. When I hear someone claim they can't find a job in over a year, it just doesn't sound right to me.
 

SW48

Administrator
Staff member
Supporting Member
That seems reasonable. I believe in helping people out, but at some point they have to make an effort to help themselves. I'm 56 years old, and I've always had a job of some kind since I was 14. When I hear someone claim they can't find a job in over a year, it just doesn't sound right to me.
Remember unemployment is allowing the unemployed person the time to not just find any job, it is allowing them to find a job in their career field that pays a similar amount of money to the one they lost.

If they were just trying to find any job, then yes, a year would be hard to believe.

I was unemployed from the Defense Department when the president made a 10% cut across the board and I was a contractor so we were first to go. Then I found a comparable job in 30 days. But the company that hired me said my start date would be 45 days later. The Friday before I was supposed to start the parent copany put up a hiring freeze on all of their subsidiaries and I never did work there. So then I was unemployed for 75 days and basically had to restart the job search. Strange things can happen.
 

SW48

Administrator
Staff member
Supporting Member
That seems reasonable. I believe in helping people out, but at some point they have to make an effort to help themselves. I'm 56 years old, and I've always had a job of some kind since I was 14. When I hear someone claim they can't find a job in over a year, it just doesn't sound right to me.
Remember also your job paid into unemployment so that if you became unemployed you would be able to retain your assets while you looked for comparable work. It is not an entitlement necessarily, you had to pay into it in order to draw out the benefit if needed.
 

Jen

Senator
Straight-forward, simple question: Should the number of weeks one can receive unemployment benefits be finite or infinite? If you answer the former, what would you consider a reasonable length of time before benefits are cut-off?
If the number of weeks that unemployment benefits can be received after one loses one's job is infinite, then a person can feasibly work a while, get laid off and then retire on unemployment.

Of course that infinite unemployment money thing is a non-sustainable arrangement. I believe that 3 months is a fair - longer than fair - amount of time to receive unemployment compensation and find a job to replace the one lost.
 

SW48

Administrator
Staff member
Supporting Member
If the number of weeks that unemployment benefits can be received after one loses one's job is infinite, then a person can feasibly work a while, get laid off and then retire on unemployment.

Of course that infinite unemployment money thing is a non-sustainable arrangement. I believe that 3 months is a fair - longer than fair - amount of time to receive unemployment compensation and find a job to replace the one lost.
Actually you have to submit online at least two places per week that you submitted your resume to. At least in Ohio. In order to receive unemployment.
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
Remember also your job paid into unemployment so that if you became unemployed you would be able to retain your assets while you looked for comparable work. It is not an entitlement necessarily, you had to pay into it in order to draw out the benefit if needed.

Fair point.
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
Remember unemployment is allowing the unemployed person the time to not just find any job, it is allowing them to find a job in their career field that pays a similar amount of money to the one they lost.

If they were just trying to find any job, then yes, a year would be hard to believe.

I was unemployed from the Defense Department when the president made a 10% cut across the board and I was a contractor so we were first to go. Then I found a comparable job in 30 days. But the company that hired me said my start date would be 45 days later. The Friday before I was supposed to start the parent copany put up a hiring freeze on all of their subsidiaries and I never did work there. So then I was unemployed for 75 days and basically had to restart the job search. Strange things can happen.

Yes indeed. 75 days, however, is a long way from one year, or even 26 weeks.
 
If the number of weeks that unemployment benefits can be received after one loses one's job is infinite, then a person can feasibly work a while, get laid off and then retire on unemployment.

Of course that infinite unemployment money thing is a non-sustainable arrangement. I believe that 3 months is a fair - longer than fair - amount of time to receive unemployment compensation and find a job to replace the one lost.
The strawman argument that perfectly describes the way right wingers think, well done Jen. Unemployment for life, that is precious. The resounding error in right wing economic ideology is to extrapolate the individual to the macro economy. This is how you get logic supporting austerity at the national level. But somewhere along the way, cooler more rational heads realize that your spending is my income. If you don't have money, I can't sell you anything.

Three months to find a job. I can't wait for the GOP to run on this platform. Please convince your party of choice to adopt your advice.
 

PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
The strawman argument that perfectly describes the way right wingers think, well done Jen. Unemployment for life, that is precious. The resounding error in right wing economic ideology is to extrapolate the individual to the macro economy. This is how you get logic supporting austerity at the national level. But somewhere along the way, cooler more rational heads realize that your spending is my income. If you don't have money, I can't sell you anything.

Three months to find a job. I can't wait for the GOP to run on this platform. Please convince your party of choice to adopt your advice.

wouldnt a rational head also surmise that the spending, that is your income, is funded by the income of others, whose spending may be curtailed at some point...assuming resources (money) are finite.

or, are they not...finite, that is...
 

connieb

Senator
Straight-forward, simple question: Should the number of weeks one can receive unemployment benefits be finite or infinite? If you answer the former, what would you consider a reasonable length of time before benefits are cut-off?
Finite.

6 months.

After 6 months - if you took a lower paid position - you could get additional supplmentary compensation for up to 6 months.

I think if you are unemployed - you should indeed have to take any job and not think a job is beneath you. Work has value no matter what. However, I do understand that maybe all you need is a little time to gather your wits get your resume out there, do a little networking and you could be right back where you were and ideally it is better that we employ as many peopel as we can making as much money as they can. Our economy isn't severed by having overly skilled people doing meanial labor.

However, if after 6 months you haven't gotten a job you want - it is time to take any freaking job you can. So, take something - anything and we will continue to supplement you for a few more months at partial unemployment - so if you only end up with part time work or much lower paying work - you can have some additional financial security while you are continuing to look for something else. After those 6 months though - done.

After 12 months if you haven't been able to find another job in your area at your skill set - you need to re-think what you think you are worth, and perhaps condition yourself that - whatever it is you did - is not what you will be doing going forward.

connie
 
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