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unemployment benefits

Started 7 months ago by hooper1961
Latest reply from redblack

hooper1961
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the State should suspend unemployment benefits when jobs are available. there are currently jobs available in the agricultural sector in Eastern Washington. the physically capable unemployed should be cut off from unemployment when employment opportunities exist.

Posted 7 months ago #
KBear
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Hooper, I'm sure someone else will point out why that idea is immoral as well as moronic, and I'm just as sure that you won't believe them.

Posted 7 months ago #
hooper1961
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why can't an unemployed construction worker for example pick apples? i for one won't force it, but it reasonable to not provide unemployment to someone when legitimate work is available.

Posted 7 months ago #
skeeter
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It is in the state's best interest to have its citizens fully employed with the best use of talents and skills.

So if a doctor loses her job in Spokane, and there happens to be an available job picking apples in Wenatchee, but the doctor wants to spend time looking for a medical job, then I don't have a problem with the doctor collecting unemployment while she looks for an appropriate job.

Posted 7 months ago #
hooper1961
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skeeter ok; but with an unemployed construction worker (for example) having them pick apples is reasonable

Posted 7 months ago #
JanS
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so..does that mean then, Hooper, that maybe, just maybe, suspending unemployment isn't such a good idea? A construction worker may be able to pick apples, but is not qualified for work as an IT person...sometimes you just don't make any sense...

Posted 7 months ago #
hooper1961
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JanS it is a good idea for construction workers, painters and other labor type work.

Posted 7 months ago #
JanS
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and then what do we tell them after their three weeks of picking apples is up? too effing bad?

Posted 7 months ago #
datamuse
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Hooper, do you actually know anyone who works in either industry?

Just curious.

Posted 7 months ago #
hooper1961
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datamuse yes

jans after the harvest the work is no longer available thus those jobs are no longer available

Posted 7 months ago #
JoB
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hooper1961

a construction worker could pick apples
they probably wouldn't make much
but they could

for that matter so could you

however, neither of you should be compelled to do so

Posted 7 months ago #
dobro
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So, o moral judge of the unemployed, how much are the administrative costs to determine when job opportunities are available, which unemployed people qualify for the given jobs, to suspend their unemployment for what length of time, process the re-application for benefits when the temporary job is over, and cover the inevitable appeals and lawsuits when the wrong people are forced off their benefits?

When you make up your phony number, try to make it sound realistic.

Posted 7 months ago #
bsmomma
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So, who pays travel and living/temp relocation expenses? Just wondering. Seems like someone living in (West) Seattle, traveling to Eastern Washington to pick apples would be kind of pointless after all the expenses were factored in.

Posted 7 months ago #
hooper1961
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and who pays for the unemployment insurance cost?

Posted 7 months ago #
miws
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Sorry folks. This is all my fault.

Just last night, I was thinking; "We haven't heard from Hooper lately...."

Mike

Posted 7 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

hoop...

did you notice that sneaky little word that follows unemployment?

it's called insurance.
you are required to carry it on your car too.

Posted 7 months ago #
hooper1961
Member Profile

JoB

yes but I also have to pay a 20% premium to cover motorist who do not pay for insurance. how is this fair? I believe that to get insurance you have to have insurance. In layman's terms if you don't buy insurance my insurance would not have to pay you and visa versa.

unemployment insurance rates have gone up way higher because the government keeps extending it. and when work is available such as say picking apples damn it those unemployed aught to have their checks suspended during the harvest season. they have a choice they can make money picking or do without

Posted 7 months ago #
feefeelarue
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OMG This has just made me go plaid. Unreal.

Posted 7 months ago #
JanS
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so when picking season is over, and they come back here unemployed, do we then give them unemployment? That was my question that you so artfully walked around and didn't answer.

Posted 7 months ago #
JoB
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hoop...

have you asked yourself why all your solutions are punitive?

Posted 7 months ago #
TDe
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Dang it, Mike! :)

Posted 7 months ago #
sydney
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Doctors are BETTER than construction workers, who are simply parasites on the contractors' golden hides. 8^P

Posted 7 months ago #
sydney
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See, it's easy!

Posted 7 months ago #
TDe
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Hoop... you are really complaining about it not being fair? Life isn't fair. Never has been. Should have learned that in grade school.

A guy in Western Washington who is laid off and looking for work should lose his unemployment benefits because there's a 3 week apple picking job in Wenatchee? If he doesn't have a car or enough money to pay for food and shelter, only to pick and have pennies left over to get home with, is that fair?

Unemployment insurance is designed to try and make some bad circumstances a little more fair. When your life and income are secure it's easy to sneer at others in different circumstances. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes for awhile, my friend, then let's talk about the fairness of life.

Posted 7 months ago #
cadbury
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And to this rationale, if a doctor is unemployed and a job cleaning bedpans in Oregon is available do we suspend all unemployment for doctors while that job is open? I mean cmon, you can't be serious.

Posted 7 months ago #
skeeter
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Hooper, I’ll agree with you that it lousy and unfair when people collect unemployment yet do not spend time looking for jobs. Some people do cheat the system. I’ve known a couple. There are jobs available that are comparable to previous employment, but the individual gets lazy and just milks the system for 6 months or 12 months or longer. So the rest of us pay for it through higher premiums. That’s lousy.
However, I cannot imagine how the state could possibly enforce stricter controls on unemployment benefits. It's pretty much the honesty system as I understand it.
I’m not sure it is reasonable for an out of work construction worker from Tacoma to accept a job in Central Washington picking apples. As long as he/she is looking for a job in Tacoma or within 30 miles, I think that’s fine. My hope is that people are honest, and they really do spend time looking for jobs so they become self-sufficient as quickly as reasonably possible.
I do think unemployment benefits last too long. I would support a six month maximum, maybe 8 months in times of higher unemployment. If an individual is unable to find work within six months, he/she should be open to relocating and/or accepting a lower paying job.

Posted 7 months ago #
Bostonman
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Even as a conservative I could never support something like this. Part of the reason for the great depression was that we had no backup system in place to keep people spending money.

When I lost my job as an accountant last year you are telling me I should have picked apples on the other side of the state? Crazy talk. It would cost more for me to move than I would make and I knew it was only a temporary situation. Why should I have to take a job making $100k less than I was making?

Besides, unemployment already has rules regarding this. If you haven't found a job making close to your past salary after a short period of time you are supposed to take a job making a little less but still in your preferred field.

If you want something to happen with unemployment then they should actually check peoples 3 job references each week. That is the biggest scam in unemployment right now. Most people just put down 3 companies they mailed a piece of paper off too.

Posted 7 months ago #
Klause
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Shouldn't Hooper be picking on the Welfare recipients that are capable/able of working but have never worked and/or don't ever want to work and just milk the system??

Posted 7 months ago #
blackwatch
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Actually they have audits where they call a large number of claimants in and really go over the contacts they've written down, it's pretty thorough if you're the one picked.
And as for the OP's idea, It's sick and it's, in my opinion, the great shame in our society, the lack of compassion. Just the fact that we don't have health care for everyone is something we as a nation should be totally ashamed of. It's nothing more than being selfish on the part of the LUCKY. Yes, I said LUCKY. I don't care how hard you worked, luck always enters the equation no matter who you are.
But until we find some compassion for the less LUCKY we will have these problems and we will have yahoo's proposing unreasonable, mean spirited solutions....And I was an unemployed construction worker.

Posted 7 months ago #
kootchman
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I doubt you will see many IT workers unemployed, but should that be the case... grab an apple sack. If the job last three weeks... back on the dole ya go... after the three weeks. There are jobs in the USA. If you can't find one after six months... ya go where they are. I am betting that IF you sent all these long term unemployed to Yakima, Chelan County, etc.. picked up the tab for the motel room at a Motel 6 and gave em' a bus pass... they would be off the roles pronto.

Posted 7 months ago #
kootchman
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Cadbury.. show me an unemployed doctor.

By Carla K. Johnson, The Associated Press
CHICAGO — A nurse may soon be your doctor. With a looming shortage of primary care doctors, 28 states are considering expanding the authority of nurse practitioners.

JoB..all of my insurance policies in very clear terms state how much they will underwrite, and for how long, and under what circumstances. When the limits of that policy have been reached, I don't have access to the public purse. If I under insure my car, and it get totaled, you willing to step in an make up the difference? Insurance is not an open ended, forever, angel from heaven program.... unless you pay the adjusted premium.

Posted 7 months ago #
sydney
Member Profile

I think Kootchman picks on construction workers because they often belong to unions. That old boogey (unions, not K-man).

How many stupid, arbitrary factoids of business, law, and humanity in general, are there...requiring our eternal study? Why does one seemingly have to have a PhD in EVERYTHING to understand what one's got to do to make it through a day?? Life has become extremely complex. And for Kootchman to snottily suggest by constantly carting out how he's done this, he's done that, why can't YOU, it's just arrogance. I'm struggling to make it through each week, despite being employed full-time. I can't afford help, there's a yard needs work, the house needs everything, and a divorce made it all possible. Who gets married thinking twenty years down the road they'll be economically destroyed?

Posted 7 months ago #
kootchman
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Well Sydney... that's all well and good... I didn't mention construction workers in this post. Divorces and the consequences are derived from choices you made..does not a public obligation make. Are you asking the public to make you whole again? Where was this philosophy 25 years ago when I got my divorce? Oh.. it wasn't in place. From a four bedroom eastside home to a flat on 4th Ave... it happens and then you recover. Not overnight, but you will. Now don't be a harpy.. "snottily" as you put it.

Posted 7 months ago #
cadbury
Member Profile

Of course you missed my point, Kootch. That's to be expected. But now you're saying that you are ok with picking up the tab for travel, room and, I assume, board for everyone, since they will have to eat out for all meals etc. so they can go pick apples? That sounds like a pretty good deal!

Posted 7 months ago #
kootchman
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Room and transportation...it's a job.. not a career. Or, once the benefits run out... get a reflective vest and pick up trash along the highway for the dole. Six months to find a job? BS Funny how over 80% of recepients magically find employment within 30 days of exhausting their benefits.

Posted 7 months ago #
elikapeka
Member Profile

Well, for all you free market types out there, the solution should be simple - apparently the wages the growers are offering aren't high enough. The apple growers just need to up the ante. Once the wage offered is attractive enough, then the workers will come. Trickle up economics for a change.

Posted 7 months ago #
feefeelarue
Member Profile

Where do you get the stat of 80%? I have worked for WA State UI for the last 3 years. I was hired as a temp recession worker and the gig was supposed to last 6 months. What does that say to you? I talk with these people every day
80% are desparate for work. 20% are just hanging out. I have helped people from ALL professions. So many calling after exhausting benefits hoping there will be another extension. I just dont understand where people get off judging anyone. You dont know each individual situation. Spend a day speaking to the unemployed, then maybe you would see the actual picture. Take that one call from a man in his 50s wife kids gone house gone savings gone. Spend that call begging him not to kill himself trying to get him help until he finally says i just cant and the line goes dead. Maybe then all the judgemental people can then speak to whats really going on. It haunts me every day.

Posted 7 months ago #
Talaki34
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While stationed in Germany, I had become ill and required surgery. After the surgery was done and I was ambulatory, I was tasked to sit at the CQ (Charge of Quarters) desk for several hours a day answering phones and doing paperwork. As my recuperation continued I was often given jobs like cleaning toilets, policing (picking up garbage) the smoke break area and any other menial jobs that needed to be done. This continued until I was ready to be discharged from the hospital. The thought process was that while I was not ready for combat, I was certainly ready to perform some meaningful task and there are no free rides in the military.

Those of us who are still employed are being asked to shoulder the burdens of ever increasing government and personal debt. Something has to give. There has to be a meeting somewhere in the middle. To keep the unemployed receiving money, means that my taxes will go up. I am ok with that and I am ready to vote if need be to make sure they can continue to receive assistance, but maybe they can fill in the gaps in some much needed services that have been impacted by job loss or lack of funding. Why couldn’t someone on unemployment work two days a week in a neighborhood clinic or a daycare? Why not have a crew help with filling potholes on the freeway or city streets. What about fixing our community parks? They need help and the money is not there. What about the elderly or bedridden who need food brought in or just companionship. How about helping a child to read a couple of times a week at a local school? Why can’t those who are getting a check from unemployment (past the 26 weeks) do a few hours of service? One or two days of service would still leave time to search for a job.

I know if you work you will lose your some of your benefits. That does not have to happen. Laws can be changed, even temporarily. I am not a smart person, but I have found there are usually alternatives to everything; we just have to be creative and find them.

For an example: Sidney. You mentioned that you are devastated by divorce. You have yard work that needs to be done, your house needs help and you are part of the working poor. Hey, you have my life!!!! Start being creative. Look at all these posts. You have a large community that has the resources to help and more importantly, sounds like they want to be there for each other. I just moved here and I am struggling with trying to fix my house and do my yard. Why don’t we and others trade off our time and skills to help each other? I’ll make a big pot of Garden Spaghetti and you make the sides, maybe someone else would bring something to drink, others bring some muscles and we could tackle your yard and house and get some of those projects done. I bet in one day we could accomplish a lot. The expenditures would be minimal. Items needed to make repairs, fuel/electricity for machines and the cost of food. The point is to keep forward momentum.
All of us need to stop lamenting the hand that we were dealt and quit using our arsenal of excuses of why we cannot make the necessary changes. Blame and finger pointing is not helping either. Change often comes one small completed task at a time.

-----------

I know what it means to grow up “money poor” because I grew up in the Projects. My Dad was divorced and raising two girls by himself while working two and three jobs to keep us off welfare. I have also been on unemployment myself. These are without a doubt, extraordinary times. I have a job now, but there is no guarantee that I will continue to have one in the future. My new mantra is “There but for the Grace of God.”

One more thing if you don’t mind. I see that “kootchman” on this subject is not very popular. If you don’t agree with his thought process (like me sometimes, ok a lot of the time) then you should express how you feel, but I would interject the following: Often our brains travel a different path then our hearts. So while you are blasting him for his thoughts on unemployment, remember that 16 hours ago he was making arraignments for gravel to be brought to Nicklesville.

Thank you for taking the time to listen.

Posted 7 months ago #
Magpie
Member Profile

All I can say is "Wow"

Posted 7 months ago #
Jiggers
Member Profile

Me thinks hooper is kootchman's alter ego...lol

Posted 7 months ago #
waynster
Member Profile

Gee and the republicans just hate all them legal and illegal immigrants who used to pick apples and build things and do the work that kids and workers today refuse to do awwww maybe they best look before they leap again... and what does picking friut and unemployment have to do with anything. What make them pick fruit so they can get unemployment checks..kootch says make them clean the highways so they can get welfare and state aid give me a break kootch and hooper do we live in a 3rd world counrty or something... workers dont get rich from collecting unemployment insurance once a week....most would prefer to work and most of those 80% are making mim wage or just over and are still having a rough time making ends meet kootch be glad you don't have to be one of them.....

Posted 7 months ago #
DBP
Member Profile

Why couldn’t someone on unemployment work two days a week in a neighborhood clinic or a daycare? Why not have a crew help with filling potholes on the freeway or city streets. What about fixing our community parks?

Right on Talaki!! —But who says unemployed people aren't doing some of those things already? OK, maybe all you're saying is they could do more, though, right? Or maybe we could start some formal programs along those lines.

OK. I'll buy it. I know that Hooper supports that idea, too. kootchman too, I bet.

In the meantime, I raise my glass to all the WONDERFUL WEST SEATTLEITES — Right and Left, rich and poor — who have been pitching in at Nickelsville, volunteering at food banks, painting out graffiti, etc.

Posted 7 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Elki..simplistic answer. One, how much a farmer can pay, is related to how much the market is paying for apples. And, are there substitute sources for those apples, from Chilie, Brazil, Canada, China, etc. I have watched years when cabbage was selling for 220 a ton and years when it sold for 18 dollars a ton. In the latter case, the marginal cost to harvest exceeded the cost to produce and you run the plow over the ground and hope for a better year next time. You all think raising wages is just a matter of good intentions. Those apples will rot in the fields if the cost of labor is too high. You won't pay $5 per lb. because the stores will source a cheaper supplier. It may even be another state, like WI, or NY. When you are on the public dole... you should be available to do public good. Come to me as a job applicant, and over a two year period one shows me intermittent jobs, and unemployment benefits, or two years of unniterupted benefits... who'se going to get hired?

Posted 7 months ago #
dobro
Member Profile

something to be thankful for today- I don't need a job from kootchman.

Posted 7 months ago #
feefeelarue
Member Profile

It is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too.

Charles Dickens

Posted 7 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

It is from the person that has been in the predicament who knows the way out of the tunnel and gives the best cautionary advice on how to avoid it. Not the counsel of those who seek and bleet for rescue.

Kootchman

Posted 7 months ago #
JanS
Member Profile

seriously? comparing what you say to Charles Dickens?

DBP..that was my first thought...who says their not doing those things now?

You all who think that "just suck it up"...and adjust to what you have...simply don't get it. No one...at least not the people I know..is looking for handouts. I'm not...and I'm disabled waiting to get a kidney transplant. I continue to work as much as I can, and I struggle. But my story is different. Most people on unemployment are not lazy, and they are desperately looking for a job in their chosen field. Everyone has that right. The "Occupy Whatever" movement is a voice, that for too long has been silent, and let those in the "power", if you will, assume that everyone accepted the status quo. Well, they are now finding out that they are wrong, and that voice is finally struggling to be heard.I'm stealing this from another post...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/19/1028195/-Everyone-scrambling-and-scraping-for-ways-to-pretend-that-something-serious-isnt-happening-OWS?via=siderec

Posted 7 months ago #
dobro
Member Profile

"It is from the person that has been in the predicament who knows the way out of the tunnel and gives the best cautionary advice on how to avoid it. Not the counsel of those who seek and bleet for rescue."

And which one, then, is you? Lemme guess...oh, nevermind.

Posted 7 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Over 80% of unemployment recipients get jobs within 60 days of the expiration of benefits. Twist, skew, massage, confidence test, the data as you wish. When benefits are due to expire, they go back to work. Might not be the dream job, but rent and groceries come due. Jan do you know ANYONE who does scam the system, play the largesse card? Far as I can tell you believe everyone out there is doing their dosh gone best to not take "free" money. I whole lot of schemes and scammers populate the roles. Do you remember the 25,000 plus EBT card transactions at the casinos? Now what would a welfare recipient be doing in a gambling casino with an EBT card? What? They are closer than the corner bank or Safeway?

Posted 7 months ago #
feefeelarue
Member Profile

Where does the stat of 80% come from? I give you a percentage of scammers. In fact I quite enjoyed catching them in their lies. But 80%? No. The UI they get is not as much as you would get working ...

Posted 7 months ago #

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