So Where Do We Draw The Line On Extended Unemployment Insurance, And Why?
As one of the 99ers who has exhausted their Fed unemployment extensions, I have a question to ask: what is the proper length of time for extending benefits, and why?
I ask, because it seems to me that any kind of cut-off for ending such benefits is arbitrary. If you make the argument that an unemployed person needed those benefits at week 26 or week 55 or week 99 to provide them with a lifeline (and - as the argument goes -to give them the resources to look for work), then how do you make the argument that they no longer need the benefit at week 100 or 120 or 150?
If the argument is, "well, they can't go on forever," or, "99 weeks is plenty of time to find a job, so it must be the person's fault that they can't find work," or, "well, that's just the way it is," then what's wrong with making the same arguments to limit the length of benefits to, say, 26 weeks?
What about workers who have paid into unemployment for decades without using it, compared to people who have gone on and off unemployment many times over the decades? Aren't those people who didn't use it entitled to a little consideration when it comes to the 99 week cut-off (BTW - I'm not one of those people)?
The fact is that the longer one is out of work, the less likely it is they will be hired because employers look down on such people. That has nothing to do with the person themselves and everything to do with a perception on the part of the employer. Yet, those people are cut-off from that lifeline at a date certain, even though the job market and economic conditions haven't gotten better, for them or many others.
On the one hand, being for any kind of cut-off date sorta puts you in the "cutting off benefits will get them off their lazy asses to find a job, and pronto" claque. Thinking that "we simply can't afford it" is a purely political position.
Are we as a nation moving in a direction where we accept that a not-insignificant number of our fellow citizens being tossed to the wolves is just fine, while an elite subset of people see their assets grow beyond the hopes of rampant avarice?
Any thoughts?
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My husband is a small business owner who has consistently grown in this economy.
Last master welder with an artistic background/training came from Michigan after being unemployed for three years. He had more than 400 resumes.
His HVAC business - every.single.job opening they are bombarded.
Me? I work at HQ at a major telecom.
For both of us -
Put one skilled laborer to work on Public Works Project - Preferably Green Based. They spend money. The places they spend money spend money (b2b). This creates a tax paying employee, who spends more money. And so on and so forth.
Very very simplified - but if a backhoe driver makes enough money to pay a tax preparer, then the tax preparer has enough money to pay for that green energy item for her home, the green energy employee has enough money to pay for a new patent with an attorney, that attorney now has more money for a new paralegal, the paralegal decides to buy a new car . . . he buys the new car from the sales woman at the Fiat dealership, etc. etc.
Other two things - tax me. No seriously. What is this problem people have taxing us> I wrote it this weekend and yet again - tax our two person family at a serious rate - not a joke rate. Oh - and keep taxing me on everything I earn for SS. Then give our seniors a raise - So our seniors can spend money they aren't spending now.
It's simple - to make money you have to spend money. So tax me at a rate that we can spend money, so people can earn money, so they can spend money, and so on and so forth.
Maybe it's my telecom marketing (product management, product launch, etc. etc.) and more than 15 years in a smoke in mirrors business - but it seems so simple. One more thing . . . my husband is a juried artist - who figured out how to make a living 'metal art' that is what he is and is doing more and more every day - hence hiring master welders to create his designs for homes/business/buildings or do the physical restoration work so he can focus on sculpting.
Eventually all the money will trickle up to the VERY rich who buy his artowrk and the whole system just keeps things circulating and going. 
Not giving you a hard time - but I see the difference $40 an hour can make to a man with 15 years experience who just needed a shot. I've seen what starting at $18 an hour as a level one welder can do for a young black woman who grew up in Camden but some guy from Italy moved here, started a business, gave her a shot at learning a skill and just 5 years later . . . she is hanging (earlier today) from a church in Belgium at twice the hourly rate restoring the 4 year old iron work around stained glass.
It works.
