Blaming The Unempoyed...Kyl, Gregg, Altmire, Linder, Feinstein: Jobless Are Lazy Or Drug-Addicted

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/07/unemployment-extension-st_n_637487.html

Why won't Congress reauthorize unemployment benefits for people who've been out of work for longer than six months?

For the past several weeks, Republicans in the Senate, with an assist from Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, filibustered bills to reauthorize the benefits due to concerns about adding the cost of the aid to the deficit. Beneath the deficit concerns, however, there's something else: the suspicion that the long-term unemployed are a bunch of lazy drug addicts.

It's not an opinion openly shared by most members of Congress, but a handful of senators and representatives from both parties have said this year that they suspect extended unemployment benefits actually discourage people from looking for work.

It started in March with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who said unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."

In May, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said extended benefits undermine the economic recovery because they "basically keep an economy that encourages people to, rather than go out and look for work, to stay on unemployment." And Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), after pushing party leaders to trim a domestic aid bill, said that in light of four months of job growth, "At some point you have to take a step back and look at the relative value of unemployment benefits versus people looking for jobs."

Altmire said business owners in his district (he declined to say which ones) complained of hiring trouble because potential workers would rather stay on the dole. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the same thing when she neatly juxtaposed suspicion of the unemployed and deficit worries in a June comment off the Senate floor. Deficit hawks want the extended benefits, which until 36 days ago gave the unemployed an unprecedented 99 weeks of checks in some states, to be "paid for" instead of passed as emergency spending and adding the cost to the deficit.

Feinstein said that while extended benefits during times of recession have never been paid for, "unemployment insurance has never carried the heavy weight that it does right now, the cost that it does right now, so people are concerned. And there isn't a lot of documentation on this. Last night for the first time I had somebody from a company tell me they've offered jobs to individuals and they said well, I want to not come back to work until my unemployment insurance runs out. So we need to start looking at these things. And we need to start paying for it."
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(Feinstein's office later clarified that the senator "believes that unemployed Americans want jobs, not unemployment checks." Feinstein voted in favor of every attempt to reauthorize the benefits over the past month.)

At a June hearing on long-term unemployment, Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) also trotted out the hard-luck business owner. "Even when businesses are willing to hire, nearly two years of unemployment benefits are too much of an allure for some," said Linder, citing an anecdotal Detroit News story about landscapers having trouble hiring unemployed folks who would rather stay on the dole. "The evidence is mounting that so-called stimulus policies rammed through Congress are doing more harm than good."

[Bitwit1234]

1. And when the Constitution was written

the group of people who wrote it, did not believe that members of congress would make the jobs a career. They thought they would serve THEIR COUNTRY for a few years and move on. People like Kyl, Coburn etc ahole republicans have made this their career. Too bad all those good people who are unemployed can't take THEIR place and make them unemployed.

[RandomThoughts]

2. heh, On the dole, nope, wouldn't work for them.

I got a plan...



Mike and the Mechanics.

Silent Running
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep7W89I_V_g

All I Need Is A Miracle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAMLa5ZC-B4








AC/DC - Thunderstruck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvoeeq-BH4w

[zazen]

3. what if the only work you can get pays LESS than your unemployment check?

Am I missing something? Esp. if you're still paying off student loans and/or have graduate degrees and a long professional history and might reasonably expect to be hired back into your field and even half of your old salary? Are you supposed to go off of unemployment to work full-time for WalMart? Just curious.

I'm self-employed, so I don't even have this safety net (though I've paid into it in the past, of course), but if I did, these would be considerations.

It's sort of hard to blame employers for folks at minimum wage for not wanting to hire "overqualified" people for permanent positions if in fact those people would leave in three weeks if a job opened back up in their field at three times the salary. The whole situation sucks, all around.

[Coyote_Bandit]

6. Wow

Thanks for advancing a sterotype.

***ANY*** fucking employee can choose to leave in three weeks. Or not show up at all.

I'm one of those overqualified folks. Older, well educated with a responsible work history. Being older and having an intimidating resume doesn't lend itself to finding an entry level position. And attitudes like your foreclose even minimum wage work opportunities.

In my state the maximum enemployment benefits that are payable are about $1400 per month. Most people here that draw unemployment receive less in unemployment benefits than they would earn with a minimum wage job.

[Orrex]

7. +1,000 or more

I've been turned down for near-minimum wage entry level jobs, and they've told me "we've decided to go with someone better matched to our requirements."

WTF?!? The job is (basically) lifting a box off of one conveyor belt and putting it onto another, and someone is "better matched" to that job than someone else? How? Does he have two sets of arms?


My state (PA) has a higher maximum monthly benefit, but even so it wouldn't be hard to find a job that pays better. If such jobs existed, And if those employers were wiling to hire someone with more than one entry on their resume.

[zazen]

12. Wow. Thanks for jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

I'm also one of those overqualified, older, well-educated folks with a responsible work history. I can't get hired and just lost my health insurance (and oh yeah, I have a history of breast cancer, and am a single mom with two underage children.)

I hardly just threw this out there. This has been a subject of legitimate discussion among many "highly qualified" (eg, PhD) friends and former colleagues around here. Can I ethically tell someone at Barnes & Noble, after I've begged them for a job and promised they can not worry that I'll leave in three weeks, that I WON'T leave in three weeks if I'm offered something at three times the salary? Maybe you can. I can't make that kind of promise and live with myself, nor can many of my friends. These are legitimate concerns.


PS: Because I've only been self-employed, I also have never received any unemployment insurance, though I would welcome it.

[Coyote_Bandit]

13. Ummmm......

I too am a single woman. Haven't seen a doctor in over 15 years, have no one to assist me financially and am partially responsible for providing care for two elderly family members. We're not so different. I hold two professional licenses and three graduate and professional degrees including a terminal doctoral level degree.

I know experienced licensed attorneys who have worked the cosmetics counter at Dillard's, driven UPS trucks, worked clerical jobs (including one who has done that for nearly 20 years now), earned their livlihood doing handyman and lawn care jobs, done graphic design work and a host of other less than lawyerly jobs.

I live in an employment at will state. I wouldn't dream of making a commitment to stay at a job for any length of time unless the prospective employer does likewise.

What I've done when asked to make such a time committment is assure the potential employer that they will receive my best efforts, my loyalty and agreed upon notice should I choose to go elsewhere. I also point out that other applicants might also leave the position after a short tenure and I inquire whether that potential employer is asking for such a time commitment from those other applicants. In the past I have had some success with that approach.

[OHdem10]

4. Blame the unemployed and you do not have to admit you voted

to send good paying jobs out of the country. You do not have to
admit you agreed to turn the economy into a Service Economy and
the country is too large to be sustained by Service Economy.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Ack! They sound just like our Tories (if not worse)

[Warpy]

8. I will be donating to Feinstein's opponent in the next primary

just as I donated to opponents of elitist Blue Dogs this primary season.

We have to get these entitled assholes out of office. They are not our friends.

People aren't taking jobs, Diane, because the wages being offered are often too low for them to live on. Chew on that.

[aquart]

9. Yet still legally able to vote.

[Mojambo]

10. Screw unemployment. People should be out looking for jobs THAT DON'T FUCKING EXIST.

Fuck you, Jason Altmire. Fuck you right to the bone.

[glen123098]

11. They are full of shit.

Both my fiance and I are unemployed. We aren't lazy or drug addicted. Infact, we are both college graduates and graduated with honors. We have both put in many applications. Hey shitheads, don't you get it? The jobs simply aren't there, so quit stereotyping us because we can't get a non existent job.