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[i.livejournal.com]

Comments

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

"Republicans say the extended benefits have gone on long enough—more than five years—and argue that the checks create a disincentive for people to find work."

It creates a meager safety net that enables people to find work without selling themselves on the street corner. No one enjoys being on employment, it barely pays for rent and if you want insurance, forget it. And forget about gas or eating too.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Unemployment benefits are hardly meager. Max benefits in Massachusetts are equivalent to nearly $12/hr, meaning it's actually a pretty significant benefit and keeps people from taking work that they feel is beneath the income they'd like to make.

Thus making people unemployed longer term.

Thus meaning they're less hireable (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/business/caught-in-unemployments-revolving-door.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&).

This is seen time and time again. While there have been some conflicting studies, the evidence has been pretty clear on a whole. It's the case overseas (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1635897), it was the case in the past here (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1928063?uid=3739696&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103200071663), and it's still the case (http://wdr.doleta.gov/research/FullText_Documents/Systemic%20Disincentive%20Effects%20of%20the%20Unemployment%20Insurance%20Program%20Report.pdf) (more (http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2010/april/extended-unemployment-insurance-benefits/)).

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

You're an 46 year old engineer with 20+ years of experience, who is out of work for 5 months, unemp benefits due to cut off on Dec.28th, you think its good idea for that person to dig ditches with no health care? Because I have made more money digging ditches this year than by software. I am sure as shit not afraid of dirt. I get my hands dirty. But even landscaping work is sparce in the wintertime. Also, its only 6 months worth of benefits (11K max), so I guess, I'd be in the same boat come February even without this cut-off on Dec.28th. But I would take the extra time. Two months is two months.

And nice citation from 1989, how old were you then?

People can always suck cock for a living I suppose. You'd be fine if that woman was forced to beg in the streets?

Tell me Jeff, how will it help me find a job when I wont be able to pay my rent or health insurance?

How will it help me find a job if I have to chose between food and internet or live in a fucking car?

Tell me oh wise one. How will not being able to afford a pair of shoes help me in a job interview?

How will having to sell my computer help me stay current on technology?

I would welcome a job. A job would be a fucking miracle of Christmas. I would pray to fucking Jesus for a goddamn job if I thought it would help. I am really seriously needing one. Been that way for several months. Its affecting more than just me. If the benefits get cut off, I'm done. I'm going to have to move or something, I don't even know. So, yeah, I could use this lifeline to find a fucking job right now or I may as well die in the street. Its not warm out there.

Forgive me if I cannot see how forcing me out of my home right now is going to help me take any lower paying job than digging through cat shit in gardens, which isn't much of a winter option anyway.

The idea that I am not motivated to get a job is fucking insulting. I would suck Santa's swollen red christmas mushroom for a job.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you want a job, and I truly wish I had a job to offer you. I don't, but you're clearly employable.

None of your personal experience, however, negates the reality that employment insurance does, in fact, delay people from reentering the workforce on a whole. That's the point.

[i.livejournal.com]

The problem with the crap you spouted in your comment is that the overwhelming majority of people on unemployment are like yes_justice, not like the imaginary freeloader you envision.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Odd that you jump right to the judgement call regarding motives as opposed to simply understanding the incentives of public policy and reacting accordingly. The facts tell us that unemployment assistance is a disincentive to work. Argue that point, or stick with the bitterness, it's your call.

[i.livejournal.com]

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But you are selective with your "facts". I like Krugman's recent column.

~ ~ ~

Now, the G.O.P.’s desire to punish the unemployed doesn’t arise solely from bad economics; it’s part of a general pattern of afflicting the afflicted while comforting the comfortable (no to food stamps, yes to farm subsidies). But ideas do matter — as John Maynard Keynes famously wrote, they are “dangerous for good or evil.” And the case of unemployment benefits is an especially clear example of superficially plausible but wrong economic ideas being dangerous for evil.

Here’s the world as many Republicans see it: Unemployment insurance, which generally pays eligible workers between 40 and 50 percent of their previous pay, reduces the incentive to search for a new job. As a result, the story goes, workers stay unemployed longer. In particular, it’s claimed that the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which lets workers collect benefits beyond the usual limit of 26 weeks, explains why there are four million long-term unemployed workers in America today, up from just one million in 2007.

Correspondingly, the G.O.P. answer to the problem of long-term unemployment is to increase the pain of the long-term unemployed: Cut off their benefits, and they’ll go out and find jobs. How, exactly, will they find jobs when there are three times as many job-seekers as job vacancies? Details, details.

Proponents of this story like to cite academic research — some of it from Democratic-leaning economists — that seemingly confirms the idea that unemployment insurance causes unemployment. They’re not equally fond of pointing out that this research is two or more decades old, has not stood the test of time, and is irrelevant in any case given our current economic situation.

The view of most labor economists now is that unemployment benefits have only a modest negative effect on job search — and in today’s economy have no negative effect at all on overall employment. On the contrary, unemployment benefits help create jobs, and cutting those benefits would depress the economy as a whole.

-- NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/opinion/krugman-the-punishment-cure.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0)

[hurleyman.livejournal.com]

What facts would these be, in defense of your argument, how does one quantify something that can really only be measured by the truthful response of the recipient? My mother just got laid off due to budgetary cuts, if it weren't for me supporting her right now, her less than half salary provided by unemployment would have her out on the streets. That is a fact. Please tell me how you'd live off of $300 a week. Also....do the math, her unemployment equates to $8.32/hr not your fairy tail max benefits $12.00/ft. This was based on her making $40,000 prior to being laid off.

You say below that people getting money for nothing---really? So my mother paying into a system she's never used for 35+ years is working for nothing? She can't survive right now based on what they're giving her. That's a fact.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words, nicer than my reply, I'm just at wits end. Sorry.

No one is saving their unemployment. Every dollar goes into the local economy. The money we spend on potatoes at the market helps create jobs. If I am flat broke what good am I? Been asking myself that a lot actually.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The issue is not one of people saving their unemployment, or of them not needing it. The question is whether people see the unemployment, consciously or otherwise, as an incentive to hold out for different work. This doesn't mean that people who cannot find work are mooching. It means that people might be more selective based solely on the fact that they're getting a regular paycheck that is getting them by.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I've never turned down ANY work.

I would 1000x prefer a paycheck with insurance and, yes, dignity.

But failing that, what good am I flat broke?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

"Reentering the workforce" is subjective. A person who accepts a gig twirling a sign for a cheesy mattress outlet is employed. Unable to pay any existing bills, eat, or look him or her self in the mirror, true; but employed.

Keeping benefits artificially low only incentives employers to lower initial wage offerings and the suckiness of jobs themselves. We need to incentives good job creation, perhaps by tying the upper tax brackets to the median income. The lower the median, the higher the upper brackets will climb!

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you want a job, and I truly wish I had a job to offer you. I don't, but you're clearly employable

A 46-year old engineer with 20 years of experience?
Not really. He's going to be perceived as needing too high of a salary to be worth hiring. You can get the same for cheaper with an H1B. He's going to be perceived as needing major health care soon because Getting Old, which is a drain on company resources and productivity quotas. The likelihood of him being hired is slim. Probably none.

You're not going to respond to this because you have my comments to be automatically deleted/hidden, but that's just the way it is in the work world right now. So being a Platitude Platypus and spewing rhetoric ain't going to win you anything. That's the general problem with the GOP right now, a focus on ideology and purity over actual solutions.

[hurleyman.livejournal.com]

Yup, this is my mother, 56 y/o IT director....who was laid off due to budgetary cuts three weeks ago....let's see, pay someone $50k+ or hire someone who doesn't need benefits for family members and will take the job at $25k. Or Jeff's option of working menial jobs and hoping that with two jobs you earn an average of $15/ft.....Right, the future is so bright right now. Why don't we just create work camps where people work 24/7, then they won't have the need for things like housing and fuel and we can just feed them the scraps at the end of the day that's left over.

Problem solved, right Jeff?

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Yep This was my mother also. At 55 she retired from the armed services, and had to move in with me because no one would hire her, and as a reservist she didn't get her retirement til she turned 60. Eventually I found her a part time job at Braums grocery department, for 8 bucks an hour, when she had been a master Sargent in the air guard before that. She only got That because as a current employee I vouched for her hard work.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

hardly meager

It covers my rent and 1/4 my health insurance. That's it. I have to come up with the 3/4 of my health insurance, all utilities, all food, and all transportation.

My place is 350 square feet (2 people in the space). I'm not living large and unemployment is no where near adequate to cover food, shelter, and medicine. I do have a 1995 honda civic, that I have kept on the road as best as I can, and I mean me....but anyway. I'm pretty thread bare and I'm pretty sure its obvious when I go on interviews. I send out about 40 resumes per week and get back about 1 phone interview per two weeks and have had 1 onsite which they hired within, but I am not giving up.

I really don't know where you get these ideas, but it sure doesn't match my reality. Am I supposed to not believe my lying eyes? Am I spoiled? You tell me.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You're not living large, but you are probably living in an expensive area. More reason, of course, to localize benefits like this based on need, but the idea that "they're generous" is in comparison to the fact that people could get jobs at or near that amount and do not because they're getting a check every week from the government instead. It's a reduced incentive for many, that's all that's being said.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I do live in an expensive area. But who knows, maybe that will change soon. If I could get a job to replace it in the meantime I will. I have some skills. Its a bit difficult to get a handle on my position these days.

But what about the fact that I spend 100% of that check right away in small local biz (and my landlord)? Isn't that creating jobs and helping support the economy?

[i.livejournal.com]

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

You'd think that the job creators would welcome a safety net for its workforce.

[i.livejournal.com]

Walmart does

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

You mean they actually sell nets? Oh well, I actually don't have one that close to me. Perhaps I should move to a parking lot hostel? How can you not love walmart (http://boingboing.net/2013/12/12/china-air-pollution-from-space.html)?

[catlin.livejournal.com]

You really don't have a clue, do you...

To get that 12 an hour, they have to have been making far more then that in wages.

In Kansas for instance, max unemployment a week is a little over 400. No matter how much you made employed. That is equivalent to a little over 10 an hour. (cost of living is certainly lower here then in Massachusetts) My husband went from making 24 an hour, to basically 11. That did not encourage him to hunt for a job, he was doing that already. That FED us, because it is also to much money to qualify for food stamps, or any other benefit. We lost our insurance, and to keep Cobra would have taken half that right off the top. So for the months he hunted, and he most assuredly hunted, we had no insurance on our child who takes meds that cost 200 a month.

No one sane WANTS to live on unemployment. Don't punish the people who need it, to punish the insane. How about instead, giving decent mental health care for everyone.

[i.livejournal.com]