I’m certainly dependent on a corporation. I get good pay and benefits and am happy that I am not involved in anything shady, though I’m not an especially important person beyond that.
I have a permanent fear of ending up in the OP’s situation. If not for my gf I would still live in a crappy, roach infested apartment. My car will be 20 years old next year. Some of my clothes are just as old. I really only splurge on food, save and invest 25+% of my gross income, and feel like it isn’t enough. I’ve managed to accumulate a year’s pay worth of assets, so if I were suddenly fired and went to work for some pizza joint for $362 a week I could maintain things for awhile… but I’d still be screwed. $362 a week would just about cover the rent, that’s it.
Even though there seems to be no sign of it, I always think I am going to get laid off and replaced with someone else who will work for less. My lifestyle largely revolves around preparing for this possibility. If our system had a more humane unemployment system/safety net, I’d be buying a new car, a house, new clothes, eating out and maybe having kids to boot. Instead I am as miserly as my gf will let me get away with. I can’t be the only person acting like this, and it can’t be good for the broader economy.
It’s amazing how many conservatives are in favor of entitlement programs when they themselves are recipients. It might be unemployment, it might be medical care, it might be tax breaks for their businesses…all of a sudden it’s OK for that government money to benefit THEM.
Social conservatives also need to bopped in the head for supporting such an argument. You can’t seriously be in favor of “family values” and also be in favor of someone raising children on minimum wage, with no government support like free child care. Or heathcare. Sure, the family unit suffers when the breadwinner can’t pull in any bread except for a small government paycheck. But it also suffers when kids are tossed in low-quality day care just so that the breadwinner can pull in crumbs. Are social conservatives calling for increased social welfare spending to account for the growing number of families trying to make it on minimum wages? Nope. Everything is being scaled back. So much for family values, conservatives.
Used to be, the tighty righties could rely on turning the middle class against the poor. Its easy enough, or it was, to tell people how worthy and deserving they are, as compared to the wastrels and layabouts who are draining away what is rightfully theirs. Back in the good old days, that would work, there was so much money in America, there was a middle class majority that could be relied upon.
Is there any one here who doesn’t know *anyone *in Happy’s shoes? I know several, always did. I don’t think the reality of our collective situation has quite soaked in, but its getting there. People are functionally poor now who have never been poor before, they are confused. How could this happen, they played straight, got the credentials, ate the shit, this isn’t supposed to happen to them.
There was a meme going around about Fox News: Very rich people hiring rich people to tell middle class people that poor people are the source of all their problems. That used to work, before everyone knew somebody who was screwed. Now, its not even “what are you going to do for me?” but “what are you going to do for my brother in law?”. “What are you going to do for my son who borrowed thirty thousand dollars for his ticket to the middle and his ticket isn’t any good any more?”
We’ve got their answer, its another dose of stern medicine, austerity, fix you right up. But today’s Tom Joad has been to college. I don’t think turning us against one another is going to work this time. And sweet baby Jesus and compassionate Buddha, I sure as hell hope not.
I’m an employer. I will tell you that I DON"T hold a crappy job against someone when they are applying for a skilled job. In fact, I hold them in higher esteem, because it shows their work ethic and sense of responsibility is higher than their ego and sense of entitlement.
The guy who is in charge of my remodeling division was a night manager at a restaurant and laying tile when he applied for this job. He did what it took to support himself and his family after his own construction firm collapsed and went bankrupt. That’s who I want working for me.
As far as the unemployment people being hard nosed, I will get resumes from individuals that have absolutely no ambition to be hired at all. Don’t waste my time, I’ve got shit to do.
I’m glad we have a safety net, but I don’t think it should be infinite. Just like it gets to be normal to live in mom’s basement, (even though it sucks,) I think it gets normal to take a reduced amount of money (even though it sucks) and stay unemployed.
In my experience, people rarely are self motivated- the pain of the present circumstance has to be more than the pain of change.
I’m self employed with 5 kids. There are no unemployment benefits for me. Sink or swim, baby. And if you want to talk about bad times, and bad industries, I’m a remodeler- just on this side of the worst construction economy since the 80’s. Yeah, it sucked-it sucked hard. But there is NO job that is beneath me, if that’s what it takes.
There’s no job beneath me either, if that’s what you’re implying. Just jobs that are absolutely and positively economically unfeasible for me to take. If I take a job for $9-$12 per hour during the day, my wife has to keep her $12/hour PT job and we put our kids in daycare, thereby bankrupting us. If I take a $9-$12 per hour job overnights, I have to sleep at some point, and I’d like to see my kids at some point too, but day care would still be a necessity, thereby bankrupting us.
And fucking-a, I fought and scrapped to get my college degree so i wouldn’t *have *to do this. Minimum wage shift work, when I have a bachelors and my wife has a masters? This is not an acceptable economy. I am however learning a trade and getting a certification now, so my plan is to now keep on being someone that busts his ass on the job, either as self-employed OR working for someone else, but ultimately get more than poverty wages for it.
It does not become “normal” for most people to stay on unemployment indefinitely. Speaking for me, as well as the family and friends who have suffered through this over the past six years, it’s soul-crushing. Lucky for my friends and family who suffered through it a few years ago, they got upwards of two years to get them through it. I don’t even get 28 weeks.
So eat shit for implying that I’m not willing to do what it takes for my family.
The unemployment rate right now for people with college degrees is 3.4%. It’s unfortunate that you find yourself to be one of those 3.4%, but I’m not seeing that temporarily taking a lower paying job is going to ruin the economy or ruin your ability to get back into the type of job you are looking for. You needn’t put that job on your resume if you think it’s a problem.
/QUOTE]
The unemployment rate for college graduates is only 3.4% because they’re taking jobs that do not, in actuality, require a college degree and are the jobs that used to be for those who don’t have a college degree. Gee, wonder what impact this has on that group? Higher rates of unemployment?
If the OP can find a job, it’ll likely be in a low-paying service job. This is an example how “a job is a job” or “a job is better than no job” really isn’t necessarily the case.
[ul]
[li] A lower wage job is going to pay far less than not just what he made at his old job (duh), but could even pay less than what he’s getting on unemployment. [/li]
[li] Since the jobs being created are mostly low wage, he cannot count on or hope that he can then get promoted into or find a different higher paying job. Chances are future job prospects will pay as shitty as this one. [/li]
[li] Because of this, it really doesn’t make sense to get a job that doesn’t pay at least equal to what his unemployment benefits are plus the cost of the child care he now will need to pay. This isn’t a bratty sense of entitlement - he would be actively damaging his family’s financial situation and security by taking such a job. [/li]
[li] Less significant, but still something to keep in mind, is that taking a low wage job (especially if it fits into the bad criteria above) reduces the time he can spend looking for and applying to better jobs. This isn’t even considering that it’ll be near impossible to actually go to any interviews without serious risk of losing the low wage job (they don’t take kindly to asking for time off or even a “longer lunch”).[/li]
[li] Additionally, a lot of the created jobs aren’t just low wage, but they’re part time. You may think that means he can just get an additional part time job to combine into the equivalent of one full time job, but that’s actually difficult to do. Low wage part time jobs want you to work when they need you to work, which means that a great many of them will demand open availability from their workers. As a result, most workers don’t get any kind of set schedule even from one week to the next (and often aren’t guaranteed a base number of hours per week, either). This means you can’t get another PT job since you cannot give them full availability or even a set schedule of availability. And just see what one of the jobs says when you explain you can’t work X day/shift because you’re scheduled at your other job. Not their problem. [/li]
[/ul]
I don’t have the luxury of unemployment. I have worked for far less than minimum wage, if you look at the hours I have put in to keep the company running at times. But some other business owners make millions of dollars!
Life is unfair. Now what?
I have no beef with you, and wasn’t personally attacking you, I was just trying to make you think from a different perspective.
Additionally, I pay thousands of dollars for unemployment insurance every year, yet will never be able to collect a dime myself. I’ve had one claim in fourteen years. Not bitching, it’s part of the cost of doing business, but I wouldn’t mind keeping that money.
It’s absolutely front-loaded but (and I’m no Paul supporter) it’s also true that people are less likely to take that couple of months off before starting to look if they know the benefits will run out after six months. I personally know more than one person who delayed looking for work for months because " I have almost two years to collect unemployment" who delayed only a week or two back in the late 80s/early 90s when unemployment ended after 6 months and it was easier to find a job. And it’s not because they have a bigger cushion now- these are the sort of people who never have a cushion. They just can’t imagine that it will take more than a couple of months to find a good job, so waiting three or six months to start looking gives them plenty of time.
So, it looks like you are making the case that he should take a lower paying job rather than wait for one that pays what he was making before. I’m sorry if corporations aren’t creating the type of jobs you think should be out there, but you know what? They’re not in business in order to create the types of jobs you think should be out there.
Alternatively, do what I did. I created my own job. And right now, I don’t have even one person working for me (although I have had employees in the past). Life is tough, and if you (the general “you”) sit around waiting for someone to give you what you need, you might not ever get it.
Simply underlining words doesn’t make your case. I have never said I wouldn’t take a lower paying job than I had before. In fact, I’d be ecstatic to take a job that paid about 40% what I was making before. But I can’t take a job that pays me poverty wages.
And if businesses keep not creating jobs that *should *be out there, there soon won’t be anyone left to keep them afloat, except for the rich. But unfortunately, most corporations don’t look beyond this quarter’s earnings, and so things probably won’t actually change til things get much more Dickensian than they are now.
And this impression that I and other unemployed people are simply sitting around with our thumbs up our asses waiting to be spoon-fed a great job and/or free money is utter bullshit.
Very few people, if any, look to make a career of unemployment benefits. We look to keep ourselves afloat until we can sustain ourselves again-- either through self employment or employment from another organization. Come Dec. 28, there are gonna be a lot of people unable to keep themselves afloat. But it’s “for our own good,” so I guess that’s ok. And I suppose if anyone knows what’s good for the country’s labor force, it’s an ophthalmologist, right?
I wouldn’t term libertarianism as a mental defect, I would call it a lack of morality. It’s I got mine, if you can’t compete in the job market, tough. Rand Paul is a perfect illustration of the lack of humanity that libertarianism represents. “I’d love to help you, but I think it’s in your best interest not to.” What an asshole.
Yep boot straps! They don’t get facts like, countries with the most and strongest entrepreneurs also happen to be the countries with the most comfortable safety nets, get in their way. It’s almost as if people are more willing to try to take on a new business venture when they know if it fails they won’t end up homeless trying to fend for their starving family.
But this is America… You know where if your poor you’re a failure and if you’re a failure you deserve to be poor. If you didn’t want to be poor you should have done what most wealthy Americans did for their money, be born into it.
Happy,
Rand Paul: Son Of Ron, has told you that the end of your benefits is for your own good. Rand Son Of Ron has never had to be concerned about being laid off, or putting food on his family for even a second in his privileged life. Who are you, (?) to argue or find fault with the Judgement of such an entitled human? If Rand Paul says so, it is so.
I hope you have learned your lesson about not forcing a greedy business owner to lay you off in the future.
(P.S.- hey, vote Republican if you get the chance, ok?)
Nah, it’s just the same naivete that infects most or all Humans. Our inability to cognitively understand our own nature and integrate it into our beliefs, which causes us to formulate ends and then make baseless assumptions about how we can or should go about achieving them, most of which involve “if everyone would just do X*, the world will be perfect”.
Where X isn’t very realistic.
The X for Communism/extreme Socialism is the idea that people will do what is best for everyone.
The X for Randian Capitalism is the idea that everyone will naturally compete and better themselves and that only a very small percent will fail at this. Oh, and if we let those people fail and suffer the consequences without assistance, this will naturally reduce future failures by way of example.