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We should keep extending the UI until jobs become available. When companies start complaining that they have to pay higher wages and benefits to hire people then we can cut unemployment payments. But not until then.
I do not know anyone that states they will remain on unemployment as long as possible.
We should keep extending the UI until jobs become available. When companies start complaining that they have to pay higher wages and benefits to hire people then we can cut unemployment payments. But not until then.
Jobs are available now. That is the problem. As you increase the length of time UI benefits exist, people stop taking jobs even when they become available.
There is a roughly 2.5% national job vacancy right now that is not being filled solely due to people not wanting to work those jobs because they can stay on unemployment and have enough money to get by.
UI benefits is easily inflating unemployment levels.
I will get wrangled here, but I disagree with endless extensions. At least, not with the current way that unemployment is administered. I believe that, as with many things, there should be limits. And I speak of this from experience with numerous family and friends who recently were or still are on unemployment.
In my drive into work, I saw signs at McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, a gas station, and a couple of local shops indicating they were hiring. It boggles me that in a country that has >9% unemployed there would be any jobs open. Why aren't people jumping on these jobs? Quite simply, those unemployed get paid more to sit at home and collect unemployment checks. That's not right.
One limit I would agree with extending continuously would be on a set amount of money that would cover basic needs of life (housing, food, etc.). It's not right that 2 people unemployed with the same size family in the same town would get different amounts simply because one person 'earned' more than another when they had a job. If the amount were set lower but still adequate to help people, more people would be searching for any and all work they could get to make money.
I think there is also a sense of self-worth when working that is lost with receiving checks and further complicates the employment and economic situation IMO.
In all but the most extreme cases does unemployment pay more to stay at home that a full-time flipping burgers job pay. If you were a Sr. VP (or anyone making over $32,000) and had a choice of flipping burgers or trying to continue to find work after JUST being laid off, I can see that.
However, for most of the people looking for work, that is not the case. For example the maximum weekly benefit amount in Texas is $415 which works out to approx $21,500/yr. Which you must have been making over $32,000 to get the maximum benefit.
Most of those jobs @ McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, etc. pay in the minimum wage possible which Federally is $7.25/hr. A full-time burger flipper makes then $290/wk, which works out to just over $15k (before taxes). Obviously unacceptable and falls into your scenario...IF they were getting the maximum amount of unemployment available.
Like all types of addictions, we will need to bottom out.
People need to become LESS dependent on the government.
People need to become less dependent on anyone ! Period
As it is now, you are dependent on the private or public sector for your well being, because that is how the system is designed.
If you start up a business, then you are dependent on your workers and customers for your well being.
If people insist on really stressing responsibility and independence, then they would be pointing out examples of raising your own food via cattle and a garden on your own land, tax free.
That is Independence!
But, what is really happening is, they want you to serve them and their agenda and be their slave, be it the private or public sector.
More workers looking for a job, equals lower pay because of supply and demand equals more profits for the parasites that want to take advantage of others dependency for their own gain.
I have to go with yes and no. Traditional, short term (26 week) unemployement isn't a problem. The benefits get people by, and provide time to research job availability and get applications in. But...these extended programs generate complacency. I know people that make their required weekly contacts with companies they know are not hiring, while avoiding ones that are, in order to keep their unemployement checks coming in.
After 26 weeks, I can see a "make work" program people are required to go to for unemployement benefits. States and municipalities can find work for them to do, rather it's cleaning streets, mowing public parks, maybe janitorial work in schools. Cleaning up trash along highways is another possiblity. All these are things that need to be done, we might as well utilize the long-term unemployed for these tasks. It gives them a sense of accomplishment (not just welfare receivers), maintains some kind of job skill (if just showing up for work on time) and might encourage them to look for better work as soon as it becomes available.
Extended unemployment payments are the most effective form of economic stimulation known. Every dime of the unemployment checks gets spent and passed through the economy. Far better we provide unemployment payments than bank and big business bailouts. Goldman-sacks and GM would have both survived under new management without the bailouts but most laid off workers would have been out in the streets without unemployment insurance as would most of their grocers and bankers.
I find that hard to believe and the reason being is that they claim a 1.7:1 ratio of "stimulus" that it provides but how is there going to be any multiplication effect when most of those people run straight to Wal-Mart and spend as much as they can on the (most affordable) cheapest stuff they "need." Historically they may have been true but you're in full swing globalization now.
Tell me how sending your money to the lowest paid American workers, the richest family in America and its suppliers who are all in Asia and that suppliers workers who are also in Asia.
If you want to see the circular effect of any stimulus that's passed that doesn't leave capital or ideas in the hands of the people of a nation as opposed to the government then you'll need to go to China or another favorite Asian tourist location, any of them, wherever it doesn't matter.
And yes, their living conditions looks just very similar to yours before your industrial revolution.
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