See post #23.
See post #23? Literally or figuratively?
CMC fnord!
You’ve got me confused as all fuck here. You said in post #7
You implied that someone who is laid off and offered their job back, they can refuse to return to work and still collect UI and the federal contribution of $600 until July 31st because is it more profitable. That is not true. If offered their job back and they refuse, they are no longer eligible for UI or the federal contribution.
Then you amended post #7 with post #23:
It’s not “I get to report him (assuming it’s a male) to unemployment,” I have to report him. I’m legally obligated. The employee is not forced to go back to work, but if they choose not to go back to work, they are not eligible for UI. That the employee is “forced” to go back to work and may therefore be disgruntled is not a factor in UI eligibility.
“Oh, you don’t want your job back because you’ll make more with UI, oh, that’s ok, I’ll let it slide a few months because I don’t want you coming back to work if you don’t want to. You just keep collecting that UI and $600 federal contribution. You let me know when that runs out and we can’t discuss things.”
Utter bullshit. The employer would incur legal (possibly criminal) liability if he chose to do that.
Therefore, your post #23 is unconvincing. You’re trying to cash in an irredeemable token.
I think your expectations regarding visibility are overly optimistic.
Time and time again over the past few years, when the Senate has simply refused to consider something, no matter how high-profile (take, for instance, Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the SCOTUS vacancy created by Scalia’s death), it’s dropped off the media radar pretty quickly.
How good will the Democrats be at keeping it alive in the media? About as terrible as they are with PR in general. (I’d love to be proven wrong. God, would I love to be proven wrong.)
I don’t really disagree - I think Democrats have been shockingly bad at making political hay from a number of things - the Garland nomination would be my Exhibit #1 as well. But I think the Senate ignoring a keep-things-afloat bill for a long time during 20+% unemployment is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. I just don’t see that they can ignore that. Come up with their plan? Sure, maybe. Do nothing? I just don’t see it.
I’d be curious what would happen if an employee were called back to a former job, or was offered a new job, which would normally be considered “suitable work” but for the employee having a preexisting condition creating higher risk of serious complications or death if contracting COVID-19. Say, diabetes, congestive heart failure, etc.
Would it then not be considered suitable work if the employer could not/would not accommodate remote work, for example? An awful lot of people are going to fall into those categories.
It’s an interesting question.
An employee was able to do job X. He is laid off. While he is laid off an external event happens, and that external event causes a situation that is personal to the individual making him unable to do job X. His job is now offered to him again. He turns it down.
Is he “unavailable for work” because of a disability or has the external event caused the job to be “materially different.” Employment lawyers are gonna love this one. 
If he was able to do the job pre-pandemic, and his medical condition hasn’t changed, how is it a disability?
And this is of some personal interest to me - I am asthmatic and over 50, and for totally unrelated reasons I quit my job a couple of months ago, figuring that when I was ready to go back, I wouldn’t have a problem finding another job (recruiters had been contacting me regularly). Of course, I didn’t expect the economy to crater 2 weeks later. And who the heck knows what the job market is going to be like for employment-based immigration paralegals in the near-to-medium future?
I am not quite ready to start looking yet, but am trying to figure out the landscape of how to handle, say, a request to come for an in-person interview when things open up again, or asking what the actual workspace is like (I would NOT be thrilled about open cubes or sharing an office the size of a shoebox with another person like at my old job, etc.) I’m not disabled by a long shot (I don’t even need a maintenance asthma drug under normal circumstances, and my rescue inhaler generally expires before I need to refill it), but I am also not thrilled about exposing myself to a highly communicable disease with drastic pulmonary implications.
I guess on the bright side, there will be plenty of work in the employment law arena for years to come, and employment lawyers might be more open to hiring a paralegal with a different subspecialty…
Well, playing the one side…because in the “new normal” the job is open and available and the vast majority of people are physically able to do it. If the applicant is not able because of his or her health condition, then that applicant should be on partial disability and not unemployment.
The FFCRA covers this, as far as sick pay.
They would be eligible for the 2 weeks sick pay.
So, if they have a note from a doctor saying that they are immunodeficient, then they would get their 2 weeks sick pay.
After that, they’d have to go on regular unemployment. In Ohio, you can claim unemployment for personal illness, but I don’t know how often that is granted. The one time I had an employee claim that on me, it was overturned, but this may be a different time. They may also be eligible for FML, but that would probably not cover them until things get “back to normal” (and is not mandated to be paid, in any case).
What if there are no “partial disability” benefits available to the applicant? Plenty of jobs don’t offer disability benefits at all.
We’re running a test case as we speak, and it’s not going so well.
Right now, Trump has literally NO PLAN to contain the coronavirus. None. Zip. Nada.
You’d think that would be a Big Fucking Deal, that with 90,000 American deaths and the corpses still piling up at the rate of nearly 10,000 each week, the focus on this fact would be laser-intense, that every time an Administration official appeared anywhere, they would get hounded by “what’s the plan? When will you have a plan?”
But it ain’t happening. Drives me nuts.
Compared to that, Mitch ignoring the coronavirus relief bill is a piece of cake. I wish that weren’t true, but nobody’s listening to my wishes.
Among his many flaws, Trump seems to suffer from tremendous tunnel vision. All he knows is that some protesters want to reopen now, so he tries to please them for short-term gratification. Make them happy for a few days. Who cares what comes weeks or months down the road?
Yeah, but my post wasn’t about Trump; it was about the way 95,000 deaths are not a big issue.
If one thinks the HEROES bill will get enough play for long enough to make Mitch sweat, when the growing pile of corpses hasn’t found a place in the heart of our national debate - well, that makes no sense at all.
Sorry, away for awhile. Your scenario describes someone who is beyond “general fear” of the virus and would presumably be given special consideration. The rules state “general fear.” Your scenario is a genuine fear. I’m pretty sure that would be an exception. If a person is called back to work where they’d have to accept risks other than a general risk of exposure to the virus, which we all accept, that is not suitable work for them.
What’s the latest on whether the Senate will take up this bill or ignore it until the House presents something different?
Recent statement I found from McConnell:
ETA: Not sure but this could be a veiled reference to the idea that stimulus to individuals should be more targeted this time around, which apparently is a common attitude in the Senate.
I still think it makes sense (arguably more now) to just give checks to people on a widespread basis. There are so many different reasons someone could need money right now that trying to figure out why someone isn’t making enough money but is falling through the cracks of stuff like unemployment. We should just give money to individuals on a widespread basis and tax the rich later.
Actually, you can. I quit my job in April in anticipation of relocating and taking another job. That job fell through for COVID-related reasons. This counts as voluntary unemployment (at least in my state). I could have returned to my previous employer, but I did not wish to and instead went looking for other work. They never asked if I returning to my previous employer was an option, and I never volunteered it. In theory, all of the above is checkable, though I strongly suspect they’re so swamped they ain’t making those phone calls to verify why I left, whether I’m really applying for new jobs, etc.
I’m eligible for UI in my state, as well as the extra $600. I just took a job, even though I will be making less than $100 a week more than I would be under UI. The temptation to sit on my ass until July was very real. I mostly only resisted it because I’m actively accumulating experience in a new trade. If I had a McJob and no ambitions, I’d be a fool to go back to work.
Unless you can work from home, you’d be a fool to go back to work if you had other options. Putting people in a position where they have to choose between having no money, or having money but with a nontrivial risk of death in the short term, is almost Satanic, IMHO.