Footwedge;402431 wrote:There are certainly a number of people that abuse the unemployment comp organization. A fund that people indirectly fund I might add. As a fiscal hawk, I see this as another brick in the wall in the never ending national debt problem. With that said, let me just add a few thoughts.
I have read in a few places that generically speaking, there are 6 qualified people for every job available. Can you imagine interviewing 3, 4, 5 times a month, knowing that you are qualified, only to be told no? And if you are college educated and in your fifties, you have about a 3 to 5 percent chance of actually getting hired in any white collar position at all.
The actual unemployment rate today as Isi pointed out is now 17%. Unemployed does not equate to being lazy....far from it. 17% means that one out of every 6 able bodied Americans, who have previously contributed to society as productive members of working America, cannot find work.
Now for the vast majority of Americans that are still gainfully employed (83%), it is easy and rather convenient to say "isn't 99 weeks enough?"
This issue....and many others that plague our present day society can only be rectified with policy that includes the re-inventingof American private sector industry growth. Until numbskulls understand this basic premise, we will continue to have discussions like these....whereby those that are working should not have to pay for those that aren't.
Footie,
Don't misunderstand me, I've been in some of those situations you listed above. I've had to work 2 jobs before. Probably could have gotten by on one, if I just wanted to barely scrape by. But, I didn't like to live like that, so I picked up another job, which was part time, just like I described in one of the scenarios I listed.
I have had jobs that were hard, dirty sweaty work also. I would come home with my clothes so wet from sweat I had to practically peal them off to get in the shower. Didn't even make good money and I hated it with a passion, but it paid the bills. I only quit it when I had another job lined up which took me 2 years. I've had a damn good job that was pretty much gone overnight. I've had a union job went to work on a Friday and Friday night it was closed forever. Oh and by the way, the only time in my life I ever got UE was being laid off for the union job for 3 weeks which happened about once a year - imagine that! I was in high school and worked part time at a restaurant and another side job that paid cash, working 5 nights a week and Sunday mornings.
Trust me, I'm not popping off over something I know nothing about.
I'm educated with experience in certain markets, doesn't mean I'm going to sit around waiting on one of those jobs to magically open up because it just won't happen. At least, not in the next year or 4 or 10. So instead, I do something else, which is fine by me because the time I put in is flexible and I can do it from my home. So, my education, training and experience are not in the equation right now, just like many other folks. So I'll continue doing what I do until the market I am educated, trained and experienced in opens up.
What I had to do was look outside the box and figure out what I could do vs. my little niche.
It can be done and it doesn't take 99 weeks to get a job in this world. That is, if you're willing to do the work that is outside of your box. Even if a job is considered beneath you.
I'm not trying to be self-righteous, I'm just trying to explain that I'm talking from experience. I couldn't imagine taking 99 weeks to find a job/S. I have never let myself fall into the "Allentown" state of mind. I've never been a handwringer, I was always too busy taking whatever job/S I could get.
) that the private sector took advantage of what the government did.
