I collected unemployment twice in almost 40 years of working, for a total of maybe 12 weeks. I’d been socialized to believe that getting money for nothing is akin to theft, so while part of me thought “Cool! Money for nothing!!” the other part of me felt like a vagrant and waited for someone to take the money back.
The article made me laugh and there was a lot of truth in it. But I’m still socialized so I’ll just say that I hope the guy finds a satisfying job someday.
Applying for and receiving state assistance is no more to approve of the existence of that program than applying for and receiving a gun license is to approve of the existence of gun licensing requirements.
-FrL-
Coming soon: Welfare Queens in Cadillacs: Scourge or Menace?
I don’t think anyone here, other than maybe Renob are expressing opinions that are at all critical of you or of the vast majority of those on unemployment, but only of people like the one in the linked story. It’s his actions that are despicable. You’re merely in an unfortunate situation not of your making.
Best of luck to you, and I hope you find a job soon.
I’m sort of torn. The question for me as a taxpayer is, “Do I really mind this guy doing what he’s doing?” and the answer is only “sort of.” Like anyone else, I hate being taken advantage of, but I find myself asking, “Where’s the advantage for this guy, really?” He claims to be milking the system, but only by living very badly indeed, and by taking huge risks. To put it another way, he’s not really getting something for nothing – he’s gambling, and if he loses, as he inevitably will, he’ll pay a stiff price: jail, destitution, foreclosed opportunities.
Think of it like this: what does the future hold for the guy? It seems to me the answer is, “not much.” It’s incredibly dangerous to be a parasite – the well-timed swat will get you every trime.
Well, I suppose the defense is that unemployment doesn’t pay you forever.
I vote for despicable. I believe strongly that our government(s) should provide generous unemployment assistance, and not just checks - also training, job placement, etc., for people in need. People like the author water down our ability (not to mention desire) to do so.
It’s an odd thing to put in GD. Who exactly is going to support a leech? Now a Pit thread I can get behind.
An Arky, you make a good point. If the state unemployment people could actually assist someone in retraining or finding a job, there wouldn’t be so many people misusing the system. Posting job notices on their office walls doesn’t quite cut it.
So it’s even worse than if he’s enjoying his life. You’re paying for his checks, and he’s living a life without a future. The fact that he doesn’t derive any benefit from this arrangement doubly damns the system, poetic though the justice may be.
I’m sure a lot of people aren’t trying to scam the system. My best friend was on unemployment for three weeks and I’ve never seen anyone look for a job harder.
But to be honest, I’m actually not sure that the vast majority of people on UI and able-bodied welfare recipients ARE looking for a job.
I almost hate to say this because I’m no hard-assed Republican who wants to cut people off social assistance, but in my direct experience, when I was younger, I knew plenty of people on either UI or welfare, and most of them were just happy to collect free money. There was, from a practical standpoint, no enforcement of the “you have to look for a job” rule. I can think of lots of people I knew who just drew welfare and shared a place with someone or other and drank and did nothing. They sucked up a lot of money that, frankly, could have been used for people who legitimately needed it.
In fact, for a year I had a roommate who did this. His name was Dan. He was a nice enough guy but he spent all his time doing nothing. He’d sleep, get up at the crack of noon, clean the house a little, then go drinking with friends. He drew welfare to support this lifestyle and played a gig or two here and there (he could play guitar) for beer money. That was his life. He’d been doing it for years. When they asked him to tell them what jobs he’d looked for he just hand-wrote a list of stuff he could find in the paper and said he’d applied there, even though he hadn’t. I knew several people like this.
When Dan left to go collect welfare in another city, I put out an ad for my ridiculously cheap second bedroom and got nothing but welfare recipients. All of them were long term welfare recipients, all had nothing that would obviously prevent them from working (before anyone says anything, yes, I suppose they may have had some invisible malady that caused them to look perfectly healthy and yet not be able to work) and all wanted me to lie about how much the rent was so they could collect extra welfare. I decided to just pay for a two bedroom apartment myself and enjoy the space.
Back to my best friend, who after his EI spell picked up a contract to teach basic training for a cohort of reservists in the Canadian Forces. His class was all from a geographic area of Canada reknowned for its love of government assistance. One day he asked them what they saw their future in the army being and they all said they didn’t plan on a future in the Forces. Confused, he said “Well, why are you here?” and they all said - unanimously, according to him, but I suspect it was just a vocal majority with a few embarassed people hiding their faces - that they planned on staying in the Reserves exactly long enough to qualify for more UI. They said this in exactly the same tone you might inform someone that you plan on painting your living room. Not a hint of shame. I’d like to believe he was exagerrating, but another friend of mine was in the classroom at the time, also an instructor, and confirmed the story to be true. I’d like to think maybe they were putting me on but I actually met reservists from out East who told me the same thing, again, without a hint of shame. They had a guaranteed job, but preferred to quit it ASAP because it doesn’t take a lot of money to live at home and drink cheap beer.
I could tell a lot more stories if anyone’s interested.
Truth is, if we limit the scope of inquiry to able-bodied single adults, I suspect a great many of them are just bums. People who AREN’T bums tend to collect UI and then find jobs sooner or later, so they turn over at a regular rate. Regular users, though, really don’t have a reason; I’ve known many who just ran out UI and went straight to welfare and did that for a long, long time.
Enforcement of the “you have to look for a job” rule is nigh-on impossible to effectively enforce unless the government hires private investigators.
The sad thing is that the government seems unable - and I don’t know if this is systemic or just a matter of will - to kick out the bums. Instead, they seem more prone to blanket reductions of welfare benefits and eligibility that harm people who need the help as much as those who don’t. Why they can’t ask a few questions of people, kick out the lazy losers, and give the rest of the money to the single parent who’s scraping by at the poverty level and could use some money to get their child into a decent day care so they can concentrate on doing a job and upgrading their resume, or maybe up the benefit they give disabled people, or peel off a few extra bucks from the Dans of the world to help some kid train for a job, I just cannot tell you.
Ah, it’s only for six months. His prospects of ever collecting unemployment after that would seem poor, since his employment prospects are themselves shaky. Just imagine a prospective employer Googling his name (assuming it’s his real name on the article). Or imagine what his resume must look like. He reads to me like a potential suicide.
Is unemployment really a state benefit in most states? It is often touted as an insurance plan paid for by the employer and sometimes even the employee while working. It may be administered by the state but that doesn’t mean it falls into the same category as welfare plans. That may be splitting hairs and I would never advocate someone abusing it but businesses risk having their unemployment insurance rates get increased if they like to have lots of layoffs and firings without cause. Short term disability is similar. It is usually employer paid and sometimes partially employee paid but still mostly private. Long-term disability is usually similar.
Not too long ago, someone posted an article – it might have been from the Village Voice, I can’t recall exactly – written by a woman in her mid-20s who was desperate to convince people that 401k’s were a huge ripoff for younger workers. Her only remarkable point was that it takes a number of years to be vested, and she didn’t intend to work at any one place that long. (IIRC, she was in graphic design or some similar field with a high turnover.)
The question was essentially the same as the OP: was there any defense of this attitude? Perhaps Miss 401k had a marginally better point than her unemployment-enjoying peer, but no, not really.
If there is any subtext to the OP’s question, perhaps it is that we in the US should be ashamed that so many jobs pay so little as to be competitive with the dole. Perhaps the OP is also bemoaning the end of employer-sponsored retirement plans?
I, for one, thank Bricker for his very clever and insightful way of supporting another rise in the minimum wage, guaranteed and portable retirement benefits, and perhaps even universal health care. It was very clever of him to imply his support for pro-worker policies in his post in such a deft way. My hat is off to you, sir!
Unemployment benefits are the only thing that governments have “set.” Low-end wages, as I’m sure you know, are a product of market forces; bump up minimum wage and you raise unemployment. If it’s a bad thing that the two are comparable, it makes far more sense to look at the checks being handed out.
Debatable.
I debated this point internally before posting in GD, but I would say my faith in the SDMB population is justified by at least a few of the posts here which are less than unswervingly critical of the leech.
The article is supposed to be funny. You’ll have to decide if the author was successful or not.
There is a beloved and venerable tradition of articles in the “In Defense of…” genre. I believe that H. L. Mencken wrote a piece called “In Defense of Women.”
I recall, rather poorly, and maybe mistakenly, that there was an article in Playboy by Robert Morley, the British comedian, called “In Defense of Indolence.”
But I’m feeling too lazy to look for it.
Sorry if this confuses you. I know some of you are going “Playboy? There’s articles???” Yes, indeed.
Hidden between the Playboy Advisor and the Party Jokes page.
There was a symposium recently called “In Defense of Sloth.” Tongue was firmly planted in cheek. Check it out:
The second paragraph might be a clue?
The article just shows that you can troll in old media just like you can in new media. Schneider just wanted to get a rise out of people. Looks like he succeeded.