Loving the response from my Senator

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Not enough time tonight to develop this into a worthy SDMB rant for the Pit, but WTF?

As we all know federal unemployment benefits have added $600 a week to state benefits. In my state of Wisconsin this comes to about $980 a week. Not a bad gig if you can get it. Especially since I don’t make that much and I’ve been going to work every day during this panic.

So I called my Rep, Jim Sensenbrenner ®, twice and emailed twice to ask if I’m getting a little taste since I’m still working.

After two weeks I get a call from an aide. I asked him why for the first time in my 47 years I go to work every day hoping to get laid off. I get the boilerplate “we’re proud of what we’ve done in this crisis for Wisconsinites and the country.”

I’ll say the guy was polite and I get that he’s doing a job many do while starting a career in politics. Not the Pit so I won’t get into politics being a career.

Anyway, after that I went higher and emailed Tammy Ballwin (D-WI) and Ron Johnson (R-WI)

2

I don’t think it’s fair you have to go to your job, making less than the laid off folks, either.

I say start being a lazy schmuck, come to work reeking, on alternate days of alcohol and garlic. Take 2 hour lunches.
Back talk your boss in meetings.
You’ll either get fired or a promotion.
Then you’ll be all set.

Let us know how that goes for you.

(Just kidding. I really think you’re lucky to be working, you’re hard work will be recognized and rewarded, I just know it :grin:)

3

Not enough time tonight to develop this into a worthy SDMB rant for the Pit, but WTF?

As we all know federal unemployment benefits have added $600 a week to state benefits. In my state of Wisconsin this comes to about $980 a week. Not a bad gig if you can get it. Especially since I don’t make that much and I’ve been going to work every day during this panic.

So I called my Rep, Jim Sensenbrenner (R), twice and emailed twice to ask if I’m getting a little taste since I’m still working.

After two weeks I get a call from an aide. I asked him why for the first time in my 47 years I go to work every day hoping to get laid off. I get the boilerplate “we’re proud of what we’ve done in this crisis for Wisconsinites and the country.”

I’ll say the guy was polite and I get that he’s doing a job many do while starting a career in politics. Not the Pit so I won’t get into politics being a career.

Anyway, after that I went higher and emailed Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) twice each from their “reply” links from their US senate links (.gov addresses). Asking, yes politely, what benefit or incentive I have to keep going to work.

I pointed out in both to them I’m basically taking a 30% pay cut by getting up, burning gas I have to buy to fill a car I’m paying for, to go work for 8 hours at a job that was immediately listed as “essential” when the shutdown began.

I asked how it’s possible that I’m losing money by going to work.

Can you see where this is going? Yup, no reply. So I thought maybe leave a voicemail. I went back to Baldwin’s Senate page and called the office number in Madison.

Automated message that the number is disconnected. 6082645338. Go ahead and call it. Verify it by searching yourself. No, I’m not bothering calling Ronnie.

The only good thing is that it verifies my conviction that no politician or party gives a shit about “Hard Working Americans”, nor anyone really for that matter unless you are all about electing them. And this is coming from a former pretty damn conservative (and good - looking) guy as some of you I’m sure know. Sorry, had to lighten it up a little there.

The bad thing is, Sensenbrenner is retiring so I won’t have the chance to vote against him. But Tammy and Ronnie? If anyone, anyone here can get on the ballot in WI I’ll vote for you before them.

I can’t help thinking a DtC/Shodan ticket. Yeah, I’m a little long in the tooth here. :wink:

4

Damnit that was supposed to be the OP. Still getting used to the new format. If it could be changed I’d really appreciate it

5

Thanks Beck, but WI doesn’t pay if you’re fired. Trust me, I’ve thought about it

6

Sounds to me that your problem is that your employer is underpaying you, not that people who’ve been put out of work are getting too much.

7

Um, people making less than me while working are now making more than me not working. What’s your point? Wait, don’t bother. Need to be up in 5 hours to do my part to pay taxes. But thanks for the input. It’s your company hiring? Sounds like I need a new job.

8

Sounds like both of you are getting underpaid, then.

9

The lil’wrekker’s poor, penniless boyfriend had a very nice title and job at his University teaching/tutoring English as a second language students. Made peanuts. But the honor and prestige…good grief you can’t eat honor and prestige. Not to mention his students are hell bent on getting deported. He was always saving them from themselves.
He was immediately laid off in late Feb.
He finally got unemployment and the extra $600. Plus his stimulus check. He’s never had so much money.
I’m happy for him, but it seems wrong, somehow.
That and I’m feeding his bottomless pit, air conditioning him. And all the entertainment he can stand. (Face it, I’m fun to be around) He is quarantined with his girlfriend.

Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

10

Everyone thinks they’re underpaid though in reality. It’s why we expect raises. Maybe I didn’t word it right. Just seems wrong I make less than those not working, funded by taxes I pay while working, and they made less while working than me. I’m just trying to find the logic to it.

My main question when I was calling the congresscritters was if there was going to be some kind of credit for keeping the economy going when some of us would financially be better if laid off. All I wanted was to know why it makes me feel like I’m a sucker for going to work.

This isn’t a political debate, that’s why I didn’t want to put it in the Pit. I just don’t see the logic.

11

It’s not logical. That’s the thing. Someone did the math wrong. Unemployment benefits are supposed to make you want to find a job to get more cash. Not the opposite.
IMO.

12

The more I think about it this might end up in the Pit. Though I’m going to try to be careful.

There are 2 ads being run by Opportunity Wisconsin. Directly related to this topic. Google them if you want. I can say they won’t be voting for Trump. (Neither will I, nor Biden. I said I’m done with them all.)

Anyway, the first is “Liz” from Eau Claire. She says she’s a coffee shop worker laid off. She then informs us that Trump gave $500 billion in corporate bailouts (wait, he actually has a US Treasury checkbook?) but at the end of the month he’s ending her unemployment insurance. Sounds cruel, sure. But she’ll still get WI unemployment insurance. (More on that later)

The second ad is a dramatic voice over telling us in reference to federal benefits that Trump is giving millions of Americans, wait for it, a “pay cut”.

Sigh

But Liz must have missed the latest in Wisconsin. Now anyone receiving disability payments will also get unemployment payments.

I’m going to go punch myself in the nuts to try to distract me.

13

Way I see it the expanded unemployment benefits are an economic stimulus and a means to minimizing the implosion of millions of people without income no longer paying their bills for months on end. I get that it’s not fair. My husband worked all through the shutdowns while I was furloughed. I brought in more money puttering around the house trying to find something to do than he did trying to do his job while worrying about catching COVID-19 from his customers. But we kept paying our rent and other bills, we supported local businesses and ordered out, helped out our kids when they weren’t getting unemployment or work pay so they could eat and pay their bills, and renovated our backyard in our rental. We also saved some for later, which is now that I’m no longer receiving unemployment but I’m not back up to my previous hours.

The point is, I didn’t get rich or take a fancy vacation or buy a new car. We got by a bit better than we expected and stressed a lot less about our finances than we did about the pandemic and the future. And we put it all back into the economy.

The thing that really sticks in my craw is the Republican assertion that the temporary $600 benefit is discouraging people from going back to work while ignoring the fact that many of us, especially those in customer facing jobs, don’t want to go back to work to be exposed to a highly infectious and deadly serious disease by jackwagons who don’t properly wear masks. Perhaps, if the lockdown has lasted a bit longer and Republicans would have been more responsible with implementing the CDC guidelines, infections would be far fewer (or nil) and we could all get back to work without worry.

14

The problem is that Congress wanted to send out extra stimulus payments to the unemployed, but most states have archaic computer systems handling unemployment benefits (part of the “if it’s not absolutely and completely broken, we’re not going to spend money to modernize it” mentality). A lot of these systems are 40 or 50 years old, every state’s is different, and in many cases the pool of people currently working there who actually understand much of how they are programmed is limited. (Connecticut was one of several states recruiting retirees who knew COBOL to keep the systems running under the deluge of applications back in March and April.) Trying to rewrite the systems to calculate a new benefits formula so workers get something extra but not so much extra as to exceed their former paycheck might well take many months. The $600 flat amount was a compromise, the average gap between unemployment benefits and former pay and a solution that was easier and faster to implement on the technical side.

15

Do you still have a job?
Can you pay your bills?
Can you still get the things you need at the store?

You’re welcome.

16

And where the hell is someone going to get a job when the city is shut down and their children are stuck at home? Maybe just try harder?

Unemployment benefits during regular times provide benefit amounts less than a living wage to encourage you to go look for work. RIght now there isn’t work to be had for many people, so the benefit amount was set high enough to support people while they’re unable to earn money, find any job, leave their homes, etc.

That, plus economic stimulus.

Did they set it too high for low-wage earners? It should have been tied more closely to how much people were already earning. But they rushed it through so that everyone on unemployment qualified for extra benefits without having to jump through hoops. It saves people from having to apply for food “stamps” while out of work. And next month, people are going to be hurting. Benefits will go back down to a lower percentage of what they used to earn, with no way to make up the shortfall.

Why don’t people complain instead that they’re getting paid a shitty wage?

17

According to the board conservatives, it just subsidizes lazy, good-for-nothing workers to pay a living wage.

18

I wonder if with a little thought and planning, low wage earners like the OP can be compensated on the back side with a fedearal/state income tax refund for the FY2020 tax year.

19

THAT’S the spirit! You show 'em!

Here’s my 2 cents FWIW: the country is in a CRISIS situation. There is no competent leadership that’s even attempting to lead us out of it. You are getting screwed-- I agree. Others are getting screwed in different ways from the way you’re getting screwed. There is no way out of this fucking mess that’s not going to screw someone. (Except if you’re a wealthy Republican donor, of course, but that’s another conversation.) We hope all of this is temporary and that eventually you will get paid what you’re worth and people who are not working will find jobs that pay them what they’re worth, preferably before they wind up living on the street. The people who are this far (holds fingers 1/4" apart) from the homeless shelter will be saved temporarily by the $600/week, even though it looks to you right now as if they’re taking something from you. It’s a big fucking mess and it will be for a while. Maybe a long while. Maybe a year. Maybe longer. You might be getting screwed a year from how. How does that grab you?

I don’t blame you for wanting to check out altogether. If I could get beamed up to the mother ship, I’d do it. Fortunately, I’m old and will be dead soon. Sitting out the election and being “done with them all!” is not the right place to direct your rage. Please stay mad but get over that part.

Good luck. I’m outta here.

20

That makes sense from one direction, but here’s another:

People who were making more money to start with were in a better position to have put some of it aside, and therefore have some cushion to get through bad times.

People who were making less money to start with were less able to do this, and therefore are more likely to need help because they haven’t any reserves.

It’s true that some people who make more than enough to have savings don’t have any. But if it costs $x in a given area to live at a minimum level of safe housing and nutritious diet, those people who are making $x or less than $x aren’t going to have any savings; while the people who were making $2x or $3x or more could reasonably be expected to have some.

So if what’s being looked at is actual need: the people who were being paid $x or less, or just a bit more than $x, are the ones with actual need. If some are going to get more than others, shouldn’t the ones who need it be the ones that get more? And if the idea is to provide a stimulus, they’re also the ones most likely to get it back out into circulation fastest.

Generally you can’t get unemployment if you quit or are fired, or refuse a reasonable job for no good reason. So the whole thing about its discouraging people who could get jobs from going back to work is inapplicable.

Is this hard on people doing essential jobs for low wages? Sure is. They should get a financial boost also – quite possibly an extra one for hazard pay, depending on what they’re doing. But framing the problem as ‘nobody should get help because some aren’t getting it’ is the wrong way around. Frame it as ‘people who have to keep working at jobs paying less or not much more than the current unemployment compensation should also get payments.’

And do you seriously think you’d get further arguing for that with the current Republicans than with the Democrats?