Unemployment benefit in the States ?

Factual Questions
1

Here in Ireland if your out of work you get approx. $100 a week , a medical card which means no medical costs , a fuel allowance during the winter ( IIRC approx. $10 a week ) and rent allowance which in determined by your rent ( approx. $60/80 a week ) . With this money you can live but that’s about it .

What are the figures in the U.S. ? It’s probably different from state to state but I can’t see them being to different.
I have heard foodstampes being mentioned on the American News we get over here . Are they used a lot or do the unemployed get hard cash?

2

In New York state, unemployment insurance is usually about half your salary when you were employed. It also runs out after 26 weeks. There’s a one-week waiting period before you can get your first check.

If you’re unemployed you get a weekly check. You can also apply for food stamps – it’s a separate program and you don’t have to be unemployed to be eligible. I’m not sure of the current system, but you used to be able to buy food stamps for a certain percentage of their face value amount (the percentage was determined by your income and family size; I think if things were bad enough, you’d be issued them free). You can use them in the grocery – for grocery items only – at their face value. If there was any change due, it was supposed to be given back in stamps, not cash.

You get no medical card, though you could apply for Medicaid and get that if eligible. There are no extra allowances for fuel or housing; you have to make it on the insurance checks and (perhaps) food stamps alone. I’ve gotten unemployment checks at various times, but never needed food stamps.

3

What you describe sounds more like welfare than unemployment insurance. In Wisconsin if you get laid off you get a percentage of what your average income was, up to $300 per week maximum. However, unless you expect to get called back to your job within 3 weeks, you have to actively look for work & keep a log of where you applied for a job. If you got fired from the job, generally you do not get any unemployment benefit. There is no medical or rent benefits with our unemployment program.

Welfare does not exist in Wisconsin! We did away with it 5 years ago. If a person is poor & needs assistance, the state gets them a job! No work, you starve!

4

Wow . That’s harsh . And what I described is welfare . In Ireland it’s also called benefit (divided by a common language ) .
You also have to show you are activly seeking work but from what I recall they were never really strict about this .

OOHH I forgot the last time that you get a butter voucher because of the surplus of the stuff in Europe .

5

In Texas, instead of food stamps we have the Lone Star card. This is like a debit card; it allows you to purchase a certain dollar amount of food per month. This was supposed to prevent food stamp fraud, in which people would sell their food stamps illegally for half the face value so they could spend the cash however they wished. I understand that some people have found a way to defraud the Lone Star card, anyway.

Don’t forget WIC (Women, Infants, Children), which provides coupons to buy food for pregnant and nursing women, and their babies. At one point, we were so poor that we were tearing the aluminum siding off of our house and recycling it so we could buy milk for the baby (no way could we afford formula, and it was way too late for me to go back to breastfeeding), but we still didn’t qualify for WIC because we had a car that they considered to be “too new”. Sure, we could have sold the car, but then we wouldn’t have been able to work.

Then there’s HUD, which pays rent. There are programs to pay utility bills for those who can’t afford them. Head Start. Medicaid. Medicare. In Amarillo, we also have District Clinic, which provides free but crappy healthcare and prescriptions to the needy if you don’t mind sitting in a crowded waiting room for (literally) eight hours to be seen. There are various other programs to help people to purchase medicine and diabetic supplies.

SSI cuts you a check if you’re disabled and your family’s income isn’t too high. There’s also Early Childhood Intervention for disabled kids here, and my son is eligible for it. We avoid them since we discovered that they only want to put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Besides, the place looks like something out of a documentary about tragic conditions in the Soviet Union.

There are dozens of other programs. We even have Kids Inc. to provide poor kids the opportunity to participate in sports if their parents can’t afford the registration fees and equipment costs.

Anyone who has ever been driven to apply for any one of these programs knows it’s a full-time job just filling out forms and waiting in lines.

One place we have been impressed with is the Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, though it shouldn’t be included with the others because it’s privately funded. (The only drawback is that they only treat children with primarily musculoskeletal problems; I have a friend whose son was born with horrible deformities of his urogenital system and they’re just SOL.) They did three major surgeries on my son, free of charge. They’ve provided him with braces, casts, crutches, walkers, physical and occupational therapy at no charge. The doctors and nurses there are the best in the world, and their handicapped-accessible playground is utterly fantastic. Guess who’s going to get a big chunk of cash in my will?

6

Holly , what a great answer . Thanks.

On the subject of foodstamps IIRC the I.R.A. tried to buy a stinger rocket launcher with them . That goes a bit further than fraud.

7

Depends on why you’re fired. If you lose your job because the company goes out of business or downsizes you, you’re eligible in I think every instance. If you’re fired “for cause,” the Department of Workforce Development contacts your former employer and then you after you file your initial claim. If the employer has no objection to your claim then you’re eligible. If the employer disputes your claim or if your story on being fired is markedly different from your employer’s, then you may or may not get benefits depending on how the DWD person decides. In a contested claim either side has the right to appeal the decision administratively, and I believe can appeal it judicially too.

We do still have “welfare” here, under the name Wisconsin Works or W-2. I don’t understand all the ins and outs of W-2; I don’t think anyone does, but concensus on the left is that it’s draconian and the “reforms” were unnecessary as the biggest "reform was a time limit on eligibility of two years per lifetime. Most people got off welfare on their own well within that timeframe before the “reform.” There are also complaints that the private companies hired to administer the program are making way too much money.