The "dole" should not be equal to a fucking paycheck.

It should exist only at a bare minimum sum to keep someone from freezing to death outside, and scavenging through garbage bags for food.

The "dole" maxes out at $275 a week. And you pay income tax on it.
What kind of job is being offered, that unemployment is more than the paycheck?

This guy needs to advertise in a state where the unemployment is NOT so high people can choose which one to take. Where I live (NC) there are plenty of people out of work, drawing unemployment, who WOULD work.

Construction people in NC are making more than that when they work. And I'm betting they make even more in OH.

Currently they're drawing $530 per week MAXIMUM from the ESC coffers here in NC and you've gotta make pretty good money to max out down here. I would hope he's paying 'quality' construction workers more than $13.00 in OH.

Unemployment benefits in my state max out at $578/week. I've been unemployed since March 1 or 2011 and I can't say that I've had to suffer too much. (Although I've definitely had to stop dining out, and any vacation travel is out of the question.) I'm happy to say that I've found a new job and will be back to work in a couple of weeks.

I'm not feeling too guilty since I've been paying for unemployment insurance for 30+ years and, prior to this year, have never collected a nickel. I would also note that those collecting benefits are required to look for work every week, which I have done. However, no one from the State has ever bothered to check on me to make sure I'm actually looking. I also have to certify, each week, that I have not turned down any work. Again, no one checks.

In Massachusetts, unemployment benefits max out at $653 per week and in Rhode Island, they max out at $689 per week.

I've got nothing to say against unemployment. My dad was on it in the 70s. He stayed on it a few months, long enough to get it together to start a company with a couple buds. Today the company still exists (though my dad is retired), and has over 50 employees.

If my Dad had been kicked to the curb, I'm not sure the company would ever have been formed, and those 50 or so jobs wouldn't exist.

$250 a week? Sounds dreamy!
(really need to find another part-time.)

From unemployment.org-

States that pay highest unemployment insurance compensation
Massachusetts ($628-942, 72 weeks)
Rhode Island ($528-660, 79 weeks)
Pennsylvania ($558-566, 72 weeks)
Connecticut ($519-594, 72 weeks)
New Jersey (584, 79 weeks)

States that pay lowest unemployment insurance compensation
Mississippi ($230, 59 weeks)
Arizona ($240, 72 weeks)
Alabama ($255, 59 weeks)
Tennessee ($275, 59 weeks)
Florida ($275, 79 weeks)

And if you're self-employed unemployment maxes out at $0.

I have never qualified for unemployment, SSI or any other dole, and never will. I'd like to exchange my labor for substance, but the men with guns who claim the moral authority to shoot me have declared it illegal for me to do so.

I the amount you get also depends on what you made before. (If you only made $9 an hour, you don't qualify for the maximum of $400/wk in Texas.) But yeah, if you were self-employed, and your business went over or you can't get work, you're screwed.

So it's okay to use unemployment extensions as an excuse to quit your new job? All this time I'd had the understanding that quitting your job without just cause screwed up your unemployment eligibility. Maybe nowadays extended unemployment benefits constitutes 'just cause' (or 'just cuz').

The employer should be grateful that these two losers quit before even more time had been wasted on them. They would probably both have managed to hurt themselves just badly enough to get a worker's comp settlement.

That's if this story is even true. I tried to follow the link, but apparently the Marietta Times is "upgrading their system to better serve me".

I think the problem is that his potential employees make almost as much on unemployment. That says he is paying near the bottom or way under market. Unemployment being usually between 60-80% of what you made otherwise subject to minimum and maximum. He could actually report those individuals.

When I and my former co-workers were on unemployment all of us got a 1st level audit - send in a copy of your log for them to verify - and one got a second level - you have to go into your local office for an interview.

Thus I'm asking the government to start verifying and policing the unemployment department.

I can't speak for other states but in Washington, people who receive unemployment benefits are supposed to maintain a job-search log for every week that they claim benefits (the log must have a combined total of three employer contacts or approved job-search activities) and are randomly called in for a review of those logs. After I got laid off from Boeing in 2002, I was called in twice. If your contacts don't check out, it's considered fraud but there's no arrest. You have to pay back any money you received for the fradulent week and may, I believe, be denied any future benefits.

The problem with the level of verification that this guy probably wants to see is that it would cost a lot of money.

Yeah, Amy, I'm sure you're right on that. But every time I see that something is being done to serve you better, it seems to go slightly the wrong direction.

In any case, I still can't connect with the mindset of telling the new boss that I quit due to an unemployment extension.

Makes me want to live forever, just so I can see how much weirder things can get.

By the same token, it makes me glad that I won't.

The employer should be glad. The kind of person who prefers the dole to working probably isn't much of a worker.

He might have been stuck with a malingering lazy good-for-nothing with an entitled attitude that employment laws make it difficult to fire.

Nice to read a story like this with a positive ending.

I know of cases were illegals file for unemployment after working for a few weeks. They quit or are fired yet claim they were laid off. This scam is aided and abetted by the state of CA. The employee has to document nothing nor are his statements verified. Employers contesting the award do have to prove their case however and spend the time doing it rather than running their business.

The state of CA just shovels the money out because the Feds are paying for it.

In many states, turning down a job or quitting one delays or cancels unemployment benefits, and lying about it is a crime. The people who essentially no-showed for these jobs would not get their precious dole in these places, or risk prosecution if they misrepresent what happened. In these cases, the dole is not better.

That's what I'm talking about, Bob. Where I'm from, quitting or turning down a job pretty much means forgetting about unemployment. That's why I'm having a problem getting past the gall of these guys actually telling the man their reason for quitting. From the tone of the article, they seem to feel quite justified in their reasoning.

Ah, well. That's where we're going. Somewhere in the past year or two, I heard a woman refer to her various benefits as her "salary".

And if you're self-employed unemployment maxes out at $0.

Well, the philosophy is that someone who is self-employed has control over their income. Someone who is an employee does not. That's why a person who is an employee but who quits is not eligible for unemployment compensation, because they exercised control and made the decision to quit.

Part of the problem is the stigma is completely gone from any kind of recieving aid, or frankly from gaining the system.

And as to turning down a job getting you off the dole, it requires that the company report you, which is effort on their part, for no direct benifit to them. Also easily solved, going by some who were hiring last year, by the applicant doing such a bad interview, that it guarantees them to not be hired.

A second problem is even if the job pays more it is the relative pay that really kicks in.
If staying at home on unemployment gets you $400/week. or $10 an hour. Then it really is the relative pay that matters. if the job really pays after taxes, 14 an hour, then to you working that hour only gains you $4. and to you and to many it's not worth it.

He might have been stuck with a malingering lazy good-for-nothing with an entitled attitude that employment laws make it difficult to fire.

Nice to read a story like this with a positive ending.

Instead we, the taxpayers, are stuck supporting "a malingering lazy good-for-nothing with an entitled attitude."

Not a "happy ending" in my book.

More on relative economics of an unemployment check.
Another thing to consider with this is the economis of 2 paycheck families. We have all heard the statement that a family needs 2 paychecks, but the economics of it breaks down. A second parent working adds certain expenses, day care, a second car, work clothes, more bought lunches, higher tax bracket, etc.
According to many studies, these extra expanses eats up a good % of the second paycheck. I've heard 70-80% of the second paycheck gets eaten up by these expenses, in lower middle class households. Now add in an unemployment check, this check doesn't require, day care, or lunches out, or a second car, so it's financial impact to these families could be much higher than the original paycheck was.

Actually, the dole would not have to even pay more, or in some cases, even come close. If you happen to have no self-respect and a sense of entitlement, collecting 90% of what you would make on the job, being on the dole is much better than working.

And for some people, they will not give up their disability no matter what. I knew one woman who was offered a full-time job of nearly 20 dollars an hour, but she refused it because she just couldn't stand the thought of losing her free SSI of about 1000 dollars a month.

Employers pay cash wages and incur employment costs which include healthcare, taxes, unemployment insurance, and employment related legal entanglements. The employer correctly sees these employment costs as part of the total cost of employing the worker.

Competition and productivity determine the total which can be spent on a worker, and employment costs determine the cash wage which can be offered. Greater expenses for unemployment insurance mean lowered wages. Companies are writing the checks for unemployment insurance, but workers are paying for that "insurance" through lower wages offered.

People with jobs are paying for the people who supposedly were fired without cause. If they understood that, there would not be much support for giving 99 weeks of compensation to the non-working. At 3-5% unemployment insurance fees paid by the employer, many workers are giving up ten days of paid vacation each year to support the unemployed.

How often do you hear someone say, "My son got a job just as his unemployment was about to run out."

I've known employers who wouldn't hire anyone who'd been collecting unemployment for the last three to six months or more.

I just did a quick estimate based on when I was dealing with unemployment 2 years ago.

The max benefit is a little less than $14/hr. The construction workers I know make $20/hr. SO if he is offering about the same as unemployment he is offering well below going rate. As such, some one can turn down the employment offer (I don't remember exactly the formula of when you can and can't).

Lori, nope, but I have heard, his UI ran out so he finally took that construction job, instead of waiting for the Dream job to fall in his lap.

The Former Banker, you are forgetting the relative economics. which basically is I can get 14 per hour, sleeping till noon, or I can make $6 more but then I have to actually do work. So the relative pay is only $6/hour. Minus taxes, transportation cost.

Get back to work, suckers, someone has to pay for all this, and it isn't the person getting the unemployment check.

I know these people exist, but I can't understand their motivations.

I was on unemployment once, for three or four weeks (20 years ago, don't remember for sure).

Hated it. Not so much the part about getting a check while I wasn't working, that helped a bit. Plus, doing the 'job search' stuff and paperwork to support it was worse than any real job I ever had.

No, for me it was the distaste and embarrassment that I wasn't pulling my own weight. Plus, if I'm not doing something even reasonably productive, I feel like I might as well be in a rest home, waiting to die.

I've done a whole bunch of different jobs like dishwasher, cook, shoveling asphalt into holes in the road, and so on, before I got my current engineering gig. I can't really imagine not working at something, and I can't bear the idea that I would be effectively letting myself be supported at the whim of someone else.

Sooner or later, the money faucet *will* be shut off, and these people are going to be in deep shit. They won't have improved their job skills, they won't have any current stats to indicate to a potential employer that they're worth the shot (over someone who really does want to work).

And then, like the occupy idiots, they'll bitch and moan about how they're mistreated and deserve special treatment because they made bad life choices.

And they'll have it coming.

Hell, the way I see it, just limit the total amount of time someone can be on unemployment in a lifetime.

Say a total of 3 years.

To help people get off of it, offer job training programs, which by the way, are paid for by taxes paid only by those who come off of the unemployment rolls. (Limited to 1 year of such taxation)

If someone wants to extend their unemployment benefits, they pay for it by performing community service while on the doll, picking up trash, painting over graffiti, and performing other basic public services for up to 6 hours per day (or a given number of hours per week). Every month of service while on the roll buys them an additional month of benefits.

I think the community service isn't a bad idea. I'd make it a half day, though, because you want people to have the time to start a business/look for a job. The goal is to get them off unemployment, not to make them permanent city employees.

Jim:

It's the people who stake out on their own who end up starting the businesses that drive this economy. And our government treats the self-employed as second-class citizens - not only with unemployment benefits but also with SS withholding, health care deductibility and picayune regulations.

It's risky enough to start one's own business. The government adds to that burden.

The canned response to the "why don't self-employed receive benefits" question is that we didn't pay into "the system." Well, the system is a farce. They're raiding the general fund for these benefits, and God knows that I pay plenty of taxes into that corrupt system.

I once was on UI for 6 months. During that time I was looking for work, and in the state of NC, had to submit 3 places where I'd applied to work each week, and I got, IIRC, $406/week. (Maxed out. Under 1/2 of what I was making in my paycheck, take-home.)

So 2 of those UI checks covered my rent (2BR apartment by myself) and gave me about $500/month to "play" with, after bills, food, etc.

I don't drink, which helps, and I was taking care of my grandmother (in FL) in her last days, which kept me busy, but you know... I could see the allure of UI.

I "only" had $500 or so all month, but I had _all month_. Especially if you worked some on the side, under the table, it was a helluva deal.

Liberals in my family decry the concept that anybody would prefer to take UI rather than work.

Having seen it, I can understand the allure. Especially in this day and age with cable TV, Gamng consoles, MMOs.... Beats the hell out of working for a living, if (after taxes) you're not making a LOT more.

AB:
" And our government treats the self-employed as second-class citizens - not only with unemployment benefits but also with SS withholding, health care deductibility and picayune regulations."

It's a classic parasite situation.

You need to get sustenance from the host, but too much, and you kill the host. We're at the "very sick, dying" stage with the crushing burden on self business/small business.

But the parasite of current government sees the "host" as the "enemy". One out to cheat their way out of their "fair share", and surely they're cheating much more than even we know, so for all their bitching, they're still winning by cheating.

So they drain more and more, not being able to see the effects, until it's far too late.

We recently let an employee go for sloppy work and not really caring about doing a good job. However, in CA, that is not sufficient grounds to prevent that employee from collecting unemployment (employer needs to show a higher level of misconduct and document instances of warnings, etc). System is pro-employee. Big difference from a claim I handled in Texas where the onus is more on the employee to show that the employee wasn't fired for poor work, tardiness etc..to collect unemployment.

"The second one just did not show on his first day and when I called him he said he couldn't come in now because unemployment had been extended and he was making almost as much as we were planning to start him out with."

Sounds like the guy need to raise his pay in order to attract quality workers, or; any workers at all. How much do you want to bet that this construction company was using illegal immigrant labor before the state and federal government started to crack down with tough anti-illegal immigration laws, and record breaking numbers of deportations?

Before these changes local construction crews around here were were almost 100% Spanish speaking Latino. After the changes the crews are all a mix of blacks, and redneck whites reflecting the local population of blue collar workers. Same deal with janitors. Hmm I wonder why...

The construction, janitorial, and agricultural industries shouldn't expect any sympathy from me; Especially when you consider their massive appetite for illegal immigrant labor. You reap what you sow!

Just because of the way I have been separated from all my employers I have as yet to qualify to actually get the check from UI.

It pisses me off that I have had to dump $##.00 of dollars into the system and not get a dime back.

But my question is why is this a government operation in the first place? How many private insurance companies would set up and allow you to collect 26 weeks, let alone 99, weeks of UI using the same standard government uses? Would an actuary take the same risk?