Posted on 04/04/2010 6:10:27 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
On March 26, the U.S. Senate left Washington, D.C. without extending federal unemployment benefits. While the Senators are safe in the comfort of their homes surrounded by family and friends, hundreds of thousands of Americans will spend Easter wondering how they will feed their families, pay their bills and keep their homes.
According to Indiana's Department of Workforce Development, on April 4th, federal unemployment monies expire. If your initial state benefits end in the period between April 4th and the next federal extension, you will stop receiving unemployment benefits.
If your are on one of the 4 federal tiers of benefits and it ends during this period, your benefits will stop. The estimate is that the Senate's failure to extend benefits will impact about 200,000 Americans.
How did this happen?
1. Pres. Obama and the U.S. Congress failed to make unemployment a priority issue. There is no political benefit to focusing needed attention on unemployment. Politicians do not talk about "unemployment." Instead, they talk about "jobs." Unemployment is the pink elephant in the middle of the room ignored by elected leaders. No politician wants to remind his or her constituents that 15 million Americans are unemployed and that over 50% of state benefit plans are bankrupt. It is time to remind them by going to http://www.senate.gov and letting your view be known.
2. Pres. Obama and Congressional democrats made passage of the health care bill a false emergency. The fact is that health care reform is one of the many issues facing Americans. However, the Pres. and Congress had four years to fashion and pass reform that was meaningful and supported by the people. The Senate's failure to extend benefits will hurt American families starting tomorrow. The health care bill was given priority over the view of a majority of Americans. CBS News, not exactly a bastion of conservatism, reported on Friday "the poll, conducted March 29 through April 1, found that so far the president's efforts to build up support for the bill appear to be ineffective. Fifty-three percent of Americans say they disapprove of the new reforms, including 39 percent who say they disapprove strongly. In the days before the bill passed the House, 37 percent said they approved and 48 percent disapproved."
3. Opposition to unemployment benefits is growing on claim that benefits stops Americans from looking for jobs. This claim distracts people from the reality that there is only one (1) job available for every (5) unemployed Americans. Accordingly, even if every open job was filled by a unemployed person, four (4) of those unemployed people would still be out of a job. To stop unemployment benefits due to the alleged misdeeds of a few, will pull the safety net from hundreds of thousands of Americans doing everything they can to find a job.
The real solution is for the unemployed is to join together and speak with one powerful voice loud enough to make politicians stand up and notice. It starts with every unemployed person writing, emailing and calling their political leaders until they get the job done.
You can huh? Tell me, how in hell do they meet their mortgages, utility bills, food, insurance, rent etc, when collecting unemployment benefits which is far less money?
Unemployment might work for some 21 year old living at home, but in the real world, for people with assets, mortgages, rent and bills, it will financially kill you in short order.
You can huh? Tell me, how in hell do they meet their mortgages, utility bills, food, insurance, rent etc, when collecting unemployment benefits which is far less money?
I can tell you that if there is no unemployment, there is more incentive to go back to work. When you can get paid $2000 a month to sit home you have less incentive to get right back to work. Simple economics.
Lots of 2-income families. When one can be paid to sit at home and take care of the chores and upkeep, that family is not is as big of a hurry to become a two-worker family as soon.
Ya think they use one income for fun play money?
Come on man...95 percent of middle America private sector is two income families for a damn good reason....
It takes two incomes to survive and pay the freaking bills.
Ok. So you’re 60yo, no extended family, a family you can’t feed, you’re losing your house, you can’t/won’t move and you have no job prospects at all to include Wal-Mart.
So what are your plans? Surely you must have a plan no matter how dire your situation. Do you have a homeless shelter picked out? A charity to lean on? A paid-off car you will live in? Give up your daughter to the state?
Just what DO you want? The sky’s the limit. If you could have anything that could 180 your situation what would it be?
It takes another income just to pay the damned taxes from the first income.
And the other cruel reality is that it’s much easier to find another job when you already have a job.
You bet, for the majority of middle class working America, if you take one of their two incomes away, they're screwed....This is no secret...
“...bring back the CCC...!”
You know, I’m not entirely unconvinced that isn’t their plan all along. The CCC was truly shovel-ready work; people just didn’t see back then what they see today as far as government manipulation to make one more dependent.
OTOH, being ‘on the dole’ used to carry a stigma for men that’s not there any longer...
The day before the head of HR/President's wife was in town and telling me expect the job/money to go with it by the middle of last month. That includes wiring a corner of the building for that purpose. The president essentially changed his mind and decided it can wait indefinitely.
Just when the endgame was in sight, Lucy yanks the football and Charlie Brown lands on his back.
Come on man ... Simple economics. If a person is paid to do nothing, he will have less incentive to work! Economics 101.
Can't be complete bull crap - A husband and wife team flat out tell me they had no intention whatsoever of looking for a job as long as they were getting unemployment compensation. They viewed it as a two year vacation.
Yes, they vote Democrat.
The funds paid in for UC have been used up long ago. The extensions are welfare - pure and simple.
I can’t find it either.Could it have been posted in chat?
“In tech jobs isnt there a requirement that the employers have to demonstrate that they cannot find candidates with particular sets of skills onshore before they can receive gummint permissions for 401B offshore visas?”
You see the way around that is that you, the employer, will only hire someone if they have experience on DBMS xxx version 9 (which has only been out a year) while most people with several years’ experience on DBMS xxx may have only worked with version 7 or 8...
Thanks!
“Have you considered tossing your hat in the ring for some of the tasks at Get A Coder?”
I will check that out! I’m a dinosaur, over 50 and most of my IT skills are mainframe, (COBOL), etc but I will definitely check that out...
Thank you!
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