So this is the latest twist – are people who don’t have a job a “protected class”? At first blush, it sounds like nonsense that a business would want to hire people but tell people without a job not to apply, but that is in fact often the way things work. The old saying is “It is much easier to get a job if you have a job” is true.
Add to this the issue that the people applying for a job have been sitting on their ass for 99 weeks perfectly content to wait until the checks run out – or working for cash “off the books” – and the day they qualify again for 99 more weeks of unemployment will find a reason to leave your employment, just about the time you finished training them. That 99 weeks of checks doesn’t just come from the money fairy – it is ultimately paid by the employers through increased state unemployment assessments and FUTA taxes.
There are some assumptions here that are completely freakin’ WRONG:
1. It is true that businesses won’t hire an unemployed person as quickly as one who has a job. This is wrong.
When someone is unemployed, they may have been faithful to their former company until they were let go. Yet the hiring company will hire someone with a job who may in turn be looking for a newer job the second week they are there? I see this happening more often then someone working just long enough to qualify for benefits again.
HR has to start thinking like it is 2011 and not 1990.
2. Not everyone out there has been unemployed for 99 weeks.
But 99 weeks is a BIT excessive.
The standard guide is a month of searching for every $10K in salary. So $60K becomes 6 months. Also take into account we are living thru the worst recession (depression?) since the 1930s? And not everybody can be hired bythe govt. no matter what Osama wants.
So maybe after 50 weeks they have to teach in the Inner City schools to earn that Unemployment check? Clean up toxic wastes sites? How about work as aides to Congresspeople and Senators, thereby saving some of those $175,000 paychecks that Osama said the other day that wasn’t THAT much. It might incentivize the Representatives to get serious about creating jobs quicker?
What kind of punishment can you dream up to get them back in the workforce?
I offered jobs to two people (some months ago) – I was declined because they wanted to see what was happening with the redistribution of my wealth through hand outs in the form of unemployment socialism. I have heard that some people stop reading applications if they get to a government or union job in the job history – some may even ball the lazy-assed applicant’s application up and play ‘hoops’ with the shred basket. A government job is like welfare if you have to take one to put food on the table for a short time – OK – I guess – if it is your career then you are a failure at life. I’ve known widows who rather than take government handouts took in laundry and made sandwiches for people. When I lost every thing except the clothes on by back due to a building fire I accepted help from my family and repaid it in less than a month – there are doers and there are losers, I’m damn tired of paying for losers.
The summer between high school and college, I worked as an intern at the local social security office (up to that time, I had jobs working in restaurants). That couple of months working in a government office forms much of my opinion about why people are foolish if they think government exists to solve their problems.
Ridiculous! If you think ppl who brought home $3,000 wkly and now get an unemployment check for $350.00 wkly minus the taxes on that money want to sit on their asses then you are stupid and part of the problem. Many of the 99ers have been on the same job for at least 10yrs b4 getting ui checks. What about all the unclaimed unemployment/workers compensation dollars paid to States b4 the last 99 wks? Where is that money?
States are in debt for their unemployment funds to the tune of $42 billion. The states want to double the rate they can charge businesses that are still surviving to try to start stopping the hemorrhage. Unemployment taxes are generally paid in arrears – after an employer’s people collect unemployment, their assessment rate goes up until their balance owed gets back to zero. If the business fails without repaying the tax, the other businesses in the state are assessed to make up the difference.
There is no money fairy. The longer the 13 million people sit on their ass or cheat the system, the more likely the economy will never recover and employers will close their American operations.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/02/08/qa-how-do-unemployment-taxes-work/