Unemployment benefits story (sympathy or sob)

For the most part, the Social Security administrators examine disabilities fairly closely. Physicians are fairly capable of spotting frauds. You'd be surprised.

Here is what drives me nuts: People with self-inflicted ailments from smoking, not exercising, and cramming their faces with Whoppers all day, then taxing the system with their 100 percent avoidable ailments.

My father-in-law gripes constantly about all the no-goods "taking advantage of the system" by "faking" health ailments and so forth.

Meanwhile the fucker has adult-onset diabetes from eating fried bologna and gobs of butter on everything for the last 40 years. The other day, my mother-in-law caught him trying to sneak a dark chocolate Milky Way into his travel bag.

 

From what I understand, there are 3 million jobs - approximately - available in America right now.

Not sure if that includes part-time jobs and full-time jobs combined, full-time equivalency, or what. That's the figure I've heard, within the last few days.

I think that a lot of people just don't want to lower themselves to take jobs at places like Subway (mentioned earlier). They want to find an equivalent job to the one they lost. I remember growing up, my dad was laid off a lot, and my mom would just beg him to work at K-Mart or McDonald's. They would have huge fights about it, because he would talk about how he was too proud to take that kind of job.

 

But it could create another problem at the end of the period, because then they wouldn't have the incentive to find another job that might stand in the way of their next lump sum. and the government would pay out more because obviously not everyone ends up using the whole benefit. Unless you mean give everyone their lump sum covering all their extensions at once, in which case the government would be paying out a LOT more in UE.

 

I agree that we might face that problem - people holding out until the next lump sum.

But aren't those same people going to do the same anyway? Just kill time until the next extension?

At least the way, you have a group of people thinking, "The quicker I find work, the more money I have to do what I want with!"

I think that some some economists have run the numbers in models and such and figured that the net effect would be that more people would go back to work. So you are getting actual productivity out of a higher percentage of people while paying out around the same amount of money. It is certainly possible the government takes some sort of hit on the people who would have gone back anyway, but if the goal is to get people back to work and producing, that might be a loss worth taking.

 

This scenario, of course, includes no tax or Social Security or Medicare that would automatically be taken out of the check and it says nothing about how the person would pay for health insurance.

 

If you are remotely competent, you won't stay at minimum wage for long. Adult, reliable workers who are in it for at least a few years are the holy grail for fast-food places, and most will pay a premium (relatively speaking) for them.

Honestly, though, the first thing that has to go is the car. If you are talking about trying to make it on low pay, a car is simply a luxury you cannot afford.

 

And therein lies the problem for someone who lives in an area where public transportation is spotty at best. And if you're working late nights, you might not even be able to get a bus that would go there at that time. So then you're paying for cabs or something, another expense, of course, not figured into the above mythical scenario.

 

That's why I think being poor in urban areas is extra difficult. I've always lived in small towns so that's my frame of reference, but I think it is much, much easier to be poor there than in cities.

 

So what's the bus service like in that non-metro area with $300 apartments and enough Subways to provide full employment? Cause usually it takes taxes paid to the damn gubmint to run those suckers.

 

Bus service? Maybe there's a single "Dial-a-Ride" for the town or something, but only old people use it.

Your transportation is $15 Wal-Mart sneakers and your own two feet.

 

Problem is that sprawl has largely ended the era of the neighborhood store or restaurant.

 

It's interesting that this debate focuses on whether unemployment is insurance or welfare. It's both, especially with all of the extensions. How many people read the story in my original post? The woman wasn't looking for work, she just wanted the check to finish school. Seems odd since she could easily qualify for Pell grants and work study.