The Ugly Truth
Let’s put the myth to rest…you do not pay anything into unemployment insurance in California. Your employer is the only one taxed for unemployment insurance.
Now wait a minute, before you all go whipping out your pay stubs and point to the ‘CA SUI/SDI Tax’ line…let me explain, because I did the same thing…
The deduction on my paycheck for “CA State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) / State Disability Insurance (SDI)” comes out to exactly 1.1% of my federal taxable wages as stated on my last pay stub. That’s important because on the California Employment Development Department’s website (EDD), the official government website for California payroll tax information, the state disability insurance deduction is 1.1% of an employee’s federal taxable wages. So the amount I see being deducted from the ‘CA SUI/SDI Tax’ line on my pay stub is only for disability insurance, nothing for unemployment insurance.
Additionally, on the California EDD website, it clearly states that, “UI is paid by the employer” and “SDI is a deduction from employees’ wages.” Doing the math on my own paycheck confirms this.
Now on to the next topic…
The Ugly Abuse
Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who’ve been laid off. It’s a bad time economically and there is no way to know if I will be joining their ranks. I’ve learned enough so far in life to never say never. What bothers me more, is abuse of the unemployment insurance program. If someone is on UI, there are only two things they should be doing, either looking for a job or going to school full-time. Now according to the EDD, going to school while taking UI payments is fraud (because you’re not “available” to take a part-time or full-time job if you’re in school), but I don’t see it that way. The way I see it, if you go to school, then you are improving your skills which makes you more valuable and more likely to be hired. The more likely you are to be hired, the less time you will spend on UI and the less likely you will be to get laid off again in the future.
So what’s the big deal? The big deal is, that’s not what most people do with their paid holiday, they ride it out until the last check comes in without making any productive use of their time. There are only a handful of times in your life, if any, after you’re 18 years old when you don’t have to work because someone else (like your parents) is footing your expenses. The least you could do is be intelligent about it and use the time wisely.
Based on the The Ugly Truth, we know that any individual abusing the system didn’t pay anything into it, so they are “not getting their money back” which is often their claim. Second, that maximum amount that your employer pays into the system, per employee, for the entire year, is only $434. So as soon as someone collecting unemployment takes their first month’s worth of UI payments, and let’s assume the maximum payment of $1,800 a month…they have already “gotten back” four years worth of their employer’s contributions.
If someone takes 11 months worth of the maximum payments, they’ve used their entire working lifetime of employer contributions.
So how long can we be abused? Pretty damn long actually.
A regular UI claim is 26 weeks. The first federal extension adds an additional 20 weeks. The second federal extension adds 13 more weeks. On March 27, 2009 Governor Shwarzenegger extended those benefits another 20 weeks. That’s a total of 79 weeks. And according to the California EDD website, legislation is pending that may add additional weeks of coverage beyond all of that. So assuming the California legislature doesn’t add even more weeks of coverage (which they are likely to do), it’s possible for someone to abuse the system for 1.5 years. A 1.5 year vacation! And you’ve got to be kidding yourself to think that the idea of taking almost 2 years off of work isn’t so enticing to people that they aren’t abusing the shit out of this program. I guarantee that abuse is widespread.
So everyone abusing the UI system gets a free ride for shy of two years. And let’s be honest, we know the market for jobs is bad but most people on UI aren’t really looking. And that $434 employers pay per person per year…that’s not going to cover everybody, which means once again, working class tax payers are on the hook for bailing out anyone milking the free ride of unemployment benefits.
The last problem with welfare programs such as UI is the mentality it indoctrinates into those who choose to abuse it, that they can get something for nothing. The people abusing this welfare system don’t understand that their vacation is being subsidized by everyone who is still working, it is not free. I do not know how they reconcile this ethical dilemma in their mind, but it is the growth of a welfare dependent class in society that supports further socialization of the government until eventually, everyone is looking for something for nothing from the government. And like Margaret Thatcher so eloquently said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
The hard workers in this country, those who still retain a shred of work ethic, will one day give up and join the ranks of the welfare state once they are overwhelmed by the demands (taxes) they are burdened with to support the more ethically challenged. Who will pay for the lazy and corrupt who abuse our welfare systems once the workers throw in the towel and concede defeat?
Categories: Unemployment & Labor Law
Angrywoodchuck's Blog 
I never understood that in CA you could not go to school while on unemployment. It’s outdated. College classes are now available evenings, weekends, and online, meaning you can pretty much attend college WHENEVER you want and it would NOT interfere with finding or holding a job.
Fortunately, in my state the UCI does not ask about school, only if you were able and available for work. I am going to school full time, (15 units) but they are all online or night classes so YES, I am available to work.
I lived in CA for many years and their unemployment comp sucks! It is very outdated. Last I remember, you still had to mail in the forms every two weeks.
I know the deal–any system meant to help those who really need it can be abused. I’ve been getting UI for nearly a year. Still, I don’t feel one bit bad about it! When I worked, I worked hard. Being single, I was also taxed at the maximum percentile of my pay (28%) and got NO tax deductions. I pay county and school taxes at the full rate, even though I don’t have any kids or use any of the school facilities. No, I don’t feel one bit bad about taking my share of UI. I think I’ve earned it.
CA doesn’t explicitly state, from what I read, that you can not go to school. Like you mentioned in your state, CA is only interested in whether or not you are “able and available for work” which implies that you can not attend school and be “able and available for work” at the same time. From my own experience, back in the days when I thought that government was a noble and intellectual institution, I was very honest when I was applying for unemployment during the 2001 recession and told the UI interviewer that I would like to go back to school and finish my degree…I only needed three more classes and that I could do it over the summer in three months. They told me that going to school would be cause for the denial of UI payments. That was one of those epiphany moments that started me down the long road of questioning how the government does business, because that just didn’t make any sense to me.
And yes, you still have to mail in the forms. The President is on Twitter but we still have to snail mail the UI form every two weeks.
In Alabama where I currently live and work, I see the abuse of the UI claims and benefits a lot, because I’ve worked on and off for the past two years thru temp agencies. Many people workling these types of industrial temp jobs abuse the system by working just enuf for a few months so they can qualify for UI benefits, then when that temp job ends they will refuse to go back to work and instead will just stay home and draw unemployment for as long as possible. And just recently, over the 2009-10 holidays my work petered out and after weeks of trying to avoid it, I too filed for unemployment, and drew a total of four weeks unemployment before getting back on full time at a local plant where I’d worked as a temp two years earlier. But now I’m expected to work for a dollar and a half less than what I was paid two years ago for the exact same job and work. In Fact, after paying for additional gas, mileage on my vehicle, lunches etc, I am actually making about $35 per week less than what I could have drawn if I’d just layed out on unemployment benefits like all the other dead beats. I see so many people doing this in this state. Am I a fool, or is my sense of ethics just outmoded. Am I doing myself an injustice, or what?
Wow, great explanation! I was looking into this because I have a friend here in NYC that has been on benefits for 54 plus weeks and hasn’t looked for a job once, instead she lives for free at her parents house and goes out all the time and shopping with the check. I don’t know how she ‘gets away with it’ but it seems to be clear. Her justification is that she paid into the program so now she is ‘getting what she deserves’.
Jennifer,
Your friend suffers from a common misconception.
I did a quick check on the New York State Department of Labor website and as I expected it states the following, “In New York State, the money for unemployment insurance benefits comes from taxes paid by employers. No deductions are ever made from a worker’s paycheck for unemployment insurance.”
So your friend is simply ‘getting what she deserves’ from you and not from her employer. As a result of this mentality that she and millions like her have, more of your NY state income taxes will be diverted away from infrastructure improvements you could have enjoyed such as better roads, improved public services, etc… to fill the wide open hole in the unemployment insurance fund.
And what will the state’s response to this diversion of funds be as public services and infrastructure decline? Raise your taxes.
In addition, employers will inevitably have to allocate more of their profits to the unemployment insurance program which the state will mandate to help fill the hole, which means less money for raises, benefits and new hires – also affecting you directly.
I found a good example of this inevitability in a 2009 article in the Queens Gazette written by New York Senator George Onorato who stated that the the New York State Unemployment Fund, “is bankrupt,” due in large part to, “the state’s failure, for more than a decade, to increase the required level of contributions made to the Fund.”
Now you know what that will translate into for you.
Ironically, the loss of infrastructure improvements, the decline in public services and higher costs to employers in New York will also negatively affect your friend.
Unfortunately, most people fail to make this connection.
Hi you make some good points. However you are wrong. The employee ends up paying for a payroll tax like the EI through reduced wages. Let me explain it to you. If a partificular employer calculates he is able to spend $50 per hour on a worker, then it does not matter if the entire 50 is paid in a wage or $45 is and $5 to some government program. So you see, the EMPLOYEE pays EVERYTHING via reduced wages received. If an employer has to give up $5 per hour to the government for example, he will pay the employee $45. Total labor cost is still $50.
I completely agree with you except for one thing, most Americans don’t even consider that, so I was addressing their common misconception rather than the additional truth of what you stated. To me that is like “second tier” thinking. I have never heard someone complain to me, or read people complaining on the internet, about how they hate that their employer pays UI and that they wish it had gone to them instead. Most people never actualize that thought. What I do hear, are people saying something like, “I am just getting the money back I paid into unemployment.” And what they mean by that is not what you are saying, as true as that is, but rather the misconception that money has been taken directly out of their paycheck just like Social Security or Medicare taxes and put into this “account” that they are somehow now simply drawing off of. So yes, good comment and very true and very relevant.
This is the BS you are shoveling: “A 1.5 year vacation! And you’ve got to be kidding yourself to think that the idea of taking almost 2 years off of work isn’t so enticing to people that they aren’t abusing the shit out of this program. I guarantee that abuse is widespread.”
But the reality is that the maximum EDD will pay out is $900 a week, but only if your original wages exceeded a crapload of money in the first place, and only for about the first six to eight months. For a lot of people, this is half of what they were making. For some, it will be a small fraction of what they had been making at their last job. Many people will not get this much. After those first six to eight months, this amount will be halved again, to $450. Again, you only get the $450 per week if you were making bank in the first place. Most will be down to about $150 – $200 a week.
Use your brain instead of your loud mouth. This virtually guarantees that people who had been pulling significant cash down are likely to lose their homes as their income decreases drastically, again and again, far beyond their ability to cope with mortgage payments. It certainly isn’t a boon for somebody who hadn’t been making that much. Moreover, the time between extensions can take weeks, and the EDD does not make up for that time with any kind of payment or compensation. They leave you hanging, sometimes to try to last up to three weeks on that last $450. When they resume again? Another week at least before you see anything, and the time in-between is something you just have to deal with yourself.
This is not a vacation, it is not fun for anybody, and only a loudmouthed paranoid oaf would think so. I am now a year out of work. I cannot even guess at how many doors I’ve knocked on, resumes I’ve sent, applications I’ve filled. Still, despite good qualifications and much experience, nobody wants me. I have burned through my savings, I cashed in my 401k, I ate through my measly severance, which was patently, unfairly miniscule, especially given that I was so overworked at my last job that I literally ended up in the hospital from it. I don’t know how I am going to make rent this month, unless some kind employer finally takes pity and takes a chance on me. My wife and son are one check away from homelessness.
People like you don’t want to know what the reality of these situations is. You want so badly to feel anger, and to justify your own ugly nature and your own addiction to hate, that you will likely read what I read, and do nothing more than cherry pick words from it to make me seem like some kind of freeloader. But mark my words, this is not a vacation. This is not a fun time free from worry and care. I hope you didn’t lose your job as you hinted at in your original post from a few years back. Since you seem to have done nothing to retract your ignorant rantings, I will assume you did not. If so, you seem to have learned nothing.
It’s not polite to call Tea Partiers, or anyone else, names. I will never understand why someone who has a difference of opinion with something I said somehow feels they have the right to use personal assaults and name calling. Doesn’t anyone understand that that means you took the “low road,” how bad that makes you look, and that you lack civility and class in what we hope is a civilized society? Is that what you teach your kids? If they disagree with one of their little friends do you tell them they should just call them an asshole and that wins the argument? What if their friend calls your kid a shithead? Do you just shrug and tell your child the other kid won the argument with that deeply cranial rebuttal? Or should we teach our children to maintain civility, to be polite, even in the face of…que horror…a dissenting opinion?! Or is shithead and asshole to be the “new polite” for our civilized world? C’mon now.
During the recession of 2001, I was laid off with my entire department and I went on unemployment. I was young, and stupid, and had no savings to speak of. At the time I was making somewhere around $35,000 a year, so what I was paid in UI was barely enough to live on and it was available for three months. I had to move out of my nice apartment and rent a room in a crappy house with two other guys for $350 a month when my UI checks were about $660. I had to live off of the balance, all $310 of it to pay for food, gas, utilities – that’s less than $80 a week. So yeah, I know what it’s like to be on unemployment and no, it’s not a vacation, not when you are the only income earner and certainly not if you have dependents. I had so little money, there was no way for me to even think about going on a camping trip or taking a road trip or even going out to the movies because I was flat broke. I was petrified my truck would break, I might get injured, or some other large expense would hit me.
I took that time to go back to school for the summer and bang out a certificate in accounting which I brought with me to an interview while begging for a job opening in Accounts Receivable that paid way less than I was making before. My boss took a chance and gave me a three month trial which led to four years at that company and launched my current career. Later on, I got a BS in Accounting to finalize what I started. All of that from a stupid little ‘three-classes’ community college certificate. So, single wage earning families are not who I am angry with and I know what it is like to “survive” on unemployment.
I am angry with those who have the means to live off of unemployment, but could work, and take every penny of it for as long as the Government will continue paying them. There are many people who live at home with mom and dad, (especially in our boomerang generation) and take unemployment, never really trying to look for a job. Many have a working spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend, and just pocket the unemployment while hanging out with their friends. There are people that travel on their unemployment because they don’t have a family, and they have a significant other or mom and dad to pay their other expenses.
I personally know someone who had $25,000 in the bank, two houses, and a nice car, but lived on unemployment for the entire 99 weeks it was available, and who turned down three jobs that were offered to her in the meantime. The jobs were “beneath her.” She even took on a different job that paid her in shares of the company, to avoid stopping the UI payments. So she worked under the table, while cashing taxpayer checks, and she freely told us this stuff because she saw nothing wrong with it. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that she went back to work exactly ONE DAY after her UI payments expired. To the DAY. If UI was 200 weeks she would have taken it. If UI were 20 weeks, she would have went back to work at 20 weeks +1 day. THESE are the people I have a problem with.
I agree that there are people who have lots of overhead, and possibly a family, and for them, unemployment is not enough money…I can tell you right now, as a high wage-earner myself with my own family, unemployment payments would not save my house, my car…it would pay my cable bill and that’s about it. But those people are not the majority of people that are using/abusing unemployment. Most of the people on unemployment could work if they wanted to, but aren’t really trying, and have the means to abuse it, and do.
Also, unemployment insurance is not meant to replace someone’s wages, or even come close, especially for a high earner. Before there was unemployment insurance, people saved money and set it aside for “rainy days.” If that money was consumed, and all other costs that could be reduced or eliminated had been, then they downgraded their house, or went to live in an apartment, or went to live with their family. In other words, it is nobody else’s responsibility to take care of anybody else and nobody should assume they have the right to force someone else to take care of them, directly or indirectly through taxation and redistribution. Anything the Government gives anyone had to be taken from someone else that earned it first. That is just the basic premise for socialism where we all become our Brother’s Keeper, managed by our “benevolent” Government that decides how much to take from who, and who gets how much of it.
If the Government did not force companies to provide UI, the private market would sell insurance policies that did the same thing, and in the case of those people who make substantial incomes, they would simply pay higher premiums to secure a policy that paid an amount they would be comfortable receiving for a period of time they felt appropriate. But, because of Government, high income earners were screwed out of that option, and must try to subsist on the system that our Government built, a horrible one, as per usual with anything Government does.
And in the end, after all of these differing opinions about who is responsible for taking care of who…shit happens. Life is not fair. That’s just the way it works. Everyone has problems, big and small, and we deal with them. 99% of those problems have no Government solution, but we suck it up and deal with it. We stand like men and do whatever is necessary instead of complaining about what the Government should or should not provide by taking it from someone else. Nobody thinks less of someone who is trying to work, making the effort, and has to downgrade or downsize in the meantime. Being unemployed is always a temporary situation. Nobody is out of work for life.
I don’t recall Robinson Crusoe or The Swiss Family Robinson whining about the lack of Government safety nets on their islands. They did the work. Like Atlas, they bent beneath the load but did not buckle. And no matter how low you have to bend to take that load, your honor, your respect, your pride, remains intact. Complaining about the lack of a handout seems petty in that light.
Men have to suck it up and be men. Here is my post on that subject…
In many cases, high earners will not take lower paying jobs because it’s beneath them. If they have a $3,000 mortgage and an $800 car payment to make, and they’ve exhausted all the savings they should have had knowing they ran a risk as a single-high-income wage earner with a family, then rather than sell the house and trade in the car for something smaller, they turn down $10 an hour jobs, even as stop-gaps, because they want to land that $200K a year job again in order to make these payments.
I visit my local McDonalds once or twice a month, and last year there was a job posting in the window for a $10 an hour janitor job for three months! All this unemployment and they could not fill that position? A truck sat on my street for a week that had a sign on the back that they were hiring help for tree cutting. No takers. My local Starbucks has almost continuously had signs posted that they are hiring, and today has a sign posted to hire a general manager. I can see that there are jobs out there…but when a low paying job pays as much as UI pays for an earner who got the maximum payment because of their high earnings, there is no incentive for them to take that lower paying job, at least until it runs out.
As for my calculations, I will continue to stand by them. At the time I wrote this post, they were accurate for UI from the State of California specifically. I understand that both State and Federal Governments have scaled back on what they are willing to pay since this post, and for how long, but that does not change the fact that when you offer Peter the money that Paul earned, for doing nothing, you find there are more Peter’s to take the money than there are Paul’s to pay for it; legitimate, honest people notwithstanding.
Is this is insurance,?or the government pay the premium or it comes out of my pay check? Or what is your pain? Is that you can not get laid off and collect your unemployment ( INSURANCE) this insurance is the same if you pay your car insurance,some day you will use it
Unemployment insurance comes out of your employer. It’s an indirect tax on you because the money your employer pays to the Government is money the employer can’t use to give you a pay raise, or a bonus, or for the company to invest and expand or offer more benefits. People think this amount is inconsequential, but if you add up ALL the money the government takes from your employer, suddenly its quite easy to see just how much less money your employer has that they could have done something more productive with, or benefit you with directly. Many people will collect more unemployment insurance than their employers will ever pay in, and that means the government is on the hook for the rest, which again, is an indirect tax on you because your income is the governments income. Car insurance is different. You select how much protection you want, and when, and if, you collect, you get that coverage for whatever went wrong. So if I pay a little, I get a little coverage, if I pay a lot, I get a lot of coverage. No matter how good or bad the employee, everyone gets the same amount, only varying based on level of income. That’s the first problem. The second problem is that with car insurance, the insurance company asseses your risk. If you constantly crash cars, then you pay more. If you have a perfect record then you pay less. There is no such adjustment for employees that get fired or quit more versus employees that never or very rarely do. Once again, this is just a one-size-fits-all government social program that is frauded constantly, massively inefficient and used to “get votes” and not much else. Ideally, unemployment insurance should be just like car, fire, or home insurance. WE PAY, not our employer, and it’s based on our education level, our skills, our ability to hold down jobs, and how many times we collect on our unemployment. I may get laid off three times in a year, but nothing says I have to collect on my insurance. I could just choose to live on the money I’ve saved or I am not unemployed that long, etc… Unemployment insurance should be privitized and act like homeowners insurance. I can get a high premium, for example, I can only collect after four weeks of being laid off, or 8 weeks, etc… The longer the time, the lower my premium. I don’t have to collect ALL that is owed to me. Maybe my plan pays out $500 a week, but I can get by on $250. That would lower future premiums AND leave a balance that cover my unemployment for a LONGER period of time. I can adjust what my pay out is. My full paycheck from when I was working? 75%? 50%? A lump sum? It can be done by the private sector just fine. But people, for some strange reason, assume those things the government provides ARE THE ONLY THINGS ON THE ENTIRE PLANET that could not be provided by the private sector – even when they once were provided privately before they were born. We love to think that the world we were born into is the way its always been, and that’s so false.
And for those who still believe government should collect and pay unemployment…how about this…how about you just agree with me that if I purchase my own unemployment insurance, my employer can stop paying unemployment insurance for me? I am ineligible to collect it, except through my own private plan, how about that?
…and to all those who disagree with my idea above (not speaking to the commenter here)…
What? No you say? Well then that’s because you want my employer to pay in because you are sadz for all those people that can’t afford their own unemployment insurance and find themselves unemployed. Your sadz because you need MY MONEY (through my employer) to REDISTRIBUTE like socialism to other people. Your sadz because you want ME to pay for OTHERS, because I am my brothers keeper, because we are all in this together, because we believe in a socialist democracy where we all help each other, and damn it, if that means you point a gun to my head and cock the trigger and say YOU WILL HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR, then I guess you won’t be sadz anymore. Love through Violence, right?
While I am working I am paying taxes which goes towards other peoples unemployment, so I deffinetly do deserve it, and trust me you will be thankful for it when you get layer off and need it
You’re paying for other people’s unemployment insomuchas your tax revenue is being diverted to pay their time off AFTER they exceed whatever their employers over the course of the employees life has put into the system. So if I worked for 15 years and paid $6,540 into the system, and then started collecting unemployment, I would start taking other peoples taxes as my income as soon as I had been off long enough to collect back the $6,540. Which doesn’t take long.
And yes, I have collected unemployment once. Could I have gotten by without it? Yes. My parents could have helped me, or I could have taken a lesser paying job. I had other options, as do MOST people, but why? When the nanny state is waving “free” money in front of me, why would I do that?
People talk about how “you’ll appreciate it when you need it” or “we should make sure there is something there to help people” but they make these comments in a reality free vacuum. The reality is that the majority of people abuse unemployment. They either have other means; a) savings accounts, b) parents or friends, c) could move back home, d) have a spouse that can pay the bills for awhile, e) property they could sell, f) simply cut back on expenses and get by with less and a lesser paying job.
Unemployment does not do any means testing on these variables. Like the uber wealthy collecting social security, Government, the same ones that run the DMV, which is why it should be no surprise, don’t even have a basic, common sense control in place to make sure that people that don’t need it, don’t get it. And why? Because unemployment is not about helping you, it’s about getting you comfortable with Big Government, to make you feel like its that comfortable arm around your shoulder, always there to help you, always there to pick you up when you fall down – but for your vote. The Government doesn’t give a shit about you, they just want your vote. And that is why they will spend billions helping people that don’t need it, and fail to setup even the most basic controls to save from wasting that money, as long as you get the message that government is your friend and is here to help you, so you will keep voting for more and more and more government.
If they only helped the people that actually need it….lol….they’d only get a handful of votes. They have to help all those people that DON’T NEED IT, precisely for all those votes. They are not protecting you from becoming destitute, they are protecting your standard of living. That’s not the same thing. So when you lose your job but you don’t have to switch apartments for something cheaper, or sell your car and buy something else, or move back in with the parents or in my case, sell a brand new stereo system to pay the rent…then all they are doing is paying you so life doesn’t get too uncomfortable. And is that what unemployment insurance is supposed to be for? EVERYONE I know that has taken unemployment insurance, including myself, had other options. It was not the “safety net of last resort” that so many people lie to themselves about thinking that it is. We need to suck it up, it’s free money from our employers and the government that we feel entitled to and keep voting for more of it because we are scared to manage our own lives.
I’ve been suggesting an unemployment insurance that acts like car insurance or home insurance on many posts, I have to see someone argue my idea. We check a box when we are hired, and a small amount of money is set aside in an account that we can collect on if we get unemployed. Maybe our employee even does a voluntary match, like 401k. Or that money pays for an insurance policy that pays out like a claim on a car accident. There is NOTHING WRONG with these ideas. But people won’t grow up and cut the cord between themselves and that warm blanket of Big Government that promises everything will be all right, it’ll just cost you trillions instead of hundreds to make it so.
We act like every single person that goes on unemployment is destitute poor, a blacksheep orphan, single, stupid, and incapable of working. I knew a girl who went on unemployment for all 99 weeks available to her. She had over $15,000 in savings, a second home in Big Bear, well-off parents that lived nearby and she was fully capable of working. In fact at 99 weeks + two days, she had another job (but not after working under the table collecting cash while also receiving unemployment for a few months). So…is she the kind that will “appreciate it when you need it” as you say? Absolutely, because she went well beyond collecting whatever her employers had put into the system, and then took a whole bunch of your tax money to boot. And I know TWO OTHER people just like her that did similar things. And these are college educated, middle and upper middle class professionals. I mean, if you can’t even trust the 1% to not abuse the system, can you even imagine what the 99% are doing?
So sure, if you want to waste billions of your dollars on people abusing and fraudulently collecting unemployment so, hmmm, I don’t know, 5% of people collecting that actually “need” it, get it, then I’d say that is an irrational way to think, and illogical. It’s spending $100 to provide someone in need $1. And to make it worse, you aren’t even spending $100 of your OWN money to give them a $1. You will show up to the poll, and vote for laws that make ME pay, out of my own wallet, $100 for their $1. If you want to be so charitable, why not do it with your own money? Why does everyone love feeling better about themselves just by passing laws that rape everyone else’s income for their own self gratifying moral pleasures.
Unemployment insurance is theft through violence under the guise of help. Just because the Government makes something a law, does not make it ethical or moral. First the Government steals from your employer, which is an indirect tax on you, then steals from you directly as a tax to pay for other people that exceeded collecting on what their employer set aside. I’m amazed that we teach our kids its ALWAYS WRONG to steal, but then say its okay when the government does it cuz humanity. That’s BS. Either stealing is wrong, or it’s not. Once you say “stealing is wrong except when….” then YOU DON’T GET TO DEFINE THE EXCEPTIONS. The Federal Government bureaucracy and all their corrupted politicians get to instead.