Unemployment Benefits: Why Doesn't Anyone Point Out How LITTLE $ It Actually Is?

[stopbush]

The John Kyls of the world lament the fact that we fat cats getting unemployment benefits are losing our incentive to look for work, the implication being - why work when you can sit home and make just as much $ on unemployment as you can working?

Isn't it about time that someone pointed out to Kyl and the media types who have never been forced to draw unemployment that AT BEST, you will receive HALF of what you made in your previous job in unemployment benefits, that all states CAP the weekly amount that you may receive, and that eventually, the benefits run out entirely.

Here in CA, the top weekly rate is $450 a week. There's also an added $25 a week in fed stim added to the amount. So, the top $ a person may receive in unemployment benefits is $1900 a month.

So, if you make $200 a week, your UI benefit will be $100 a week, ie: 50% of your gross weekly salary. If you make $900 a week, you will get $450 a week in UI. But if you make more than $900 a week, you will still receive only $450 a week. That's right. If you were taking home $2000 a week at your job, your unemployment benefit is NOT the full $2000 a week. It is not even half, or $1000 a week. It's $450 a week. I can tell you that $450 a week isn't exactly a fortune for most areas of CA, let alone the metro areas where the COL is through the roof.

Simply put, people on unemployment are NOT living the life of Riley. They are lucky if UI covers their monthly rent or mortgage. For most people, it doesn't. Most people on unemployment are dipping into any savings they have to cover the difference between their UI and their monthly nut, and those resources deplete pretty quickly in an economy where long-term unemployment is becoming the norm.

I would like to see Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman and out Congress critters making this point to the public. The idea that UI benefits take away the incentive to look for work is ludicrous. I would like to see them point out to a John Kyl that were HE forced to go on unemployment, he would NOT be receiving his current $176,000 yearly salary in unemployment benefits. In fact, he would not be receiving even half of that. What he WOULD be receiving would be about $20,000 a year in unemployment benefits, and that only if he lived in a state with more generous benefits than others. And I would ask Mr Kyl how he planned to survive on $20,000 a year when his finances have been based on earning that large salary. How does one deal with the fact that your salary has evaporated, and that many long-term financial obligations you assumed when you earned that salary have not gone away just because you lost your job? The mortgage, the car payments, the kid's college tuition etc must now be paid on UI benefits that equate to 11% of that salary you made as a Congress critter.

THAT is what many people are facing as they go on unemployment, especially those highly skilled workers with all those "well-paying jobs" everybody harps about all the time. That's why there are so many short sales and foreclosures right now, because long term unemployment eats through savings faster than shit goes through a duck, irrespective of what your salary level was pre-unemployment.

At best, UI benefits give you some money to pay some bills, but they will never pay all of your bills (unless you're living with mom and dad). If that's not an incentive to keep looking for work, I don't know what is.

[gratuitous]

1. Well, if you're going to talk numbers

I mean, gee whiz, the whole resolution wouldn't cover a month of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. But since that money isn't going into the overstuffed pockets of Republican fatcats, it must be stopped!

[HillbillyBob]

5. Amen.

On SSD and that is hard enough.

[Hello_Kitty]

2. The max you can get in AZ is $240 a week. I'm getting $150.

Were it not for my boyfriend, I'd be homeless.

[anigbrowl]

4. Excellent example

I guarantee you that CA unemployment benefit won't buy the recipient double what someone in Arizona gets after you factor in rent and the cost of living, but the difference in the #s makes it an easy sell for politicians.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. I'm not begrudging CA recipients their benefits, just pointing out that AZ is particularly stingy.

You get $240 a week, maximum, no matter how much you made at your job or what your expenses are. Arizona's cost of living isn't as high as CA's but is considerably higher than a lot of states that pay higher UI benefits. I brought it up because AZ is Kyl's home state and the notion that the pittance paid to most unemployed people here is keeping them from looking for work is farcical.

[slackmaster]

9. Just curious - How much is taken out of your take-home pay per month in UI premiums?

I'm in California on a decent salary. I pay about $75 per month.

Over the long haul, based on the various times I have collected UI, I would have been better off putting that $75 per month into savings, had that option been available.

[anigbrowl]

3. Because people are innumerate.

I completely agree with you, but consider that $1900/mo (which is hard to live on cA) sounds like easy money if you're some working stiff in Arkansas (or maybe even Arizona). If you start breaking down the numbers most people tune out. As a parallel, consider your $2000/week example - now that's a nice salary, but you and I know that with the cost of living here in California it's comfortable rather than lavish, just as half a million bucks would buy you a small mansion in some places but in the Bay area it's only purchase a modest house. But to some on DU, $100k sounds stratospheric and a half-million house is assumed to be a palace.

[HillbillyBob]

6. Some of us realise the difference in cost of living

We moved back to the woods from South Fla .
We got a good deal, locally it was a good deal @ 75,000/575$ mo.
Our rent in Greensboro for a 3/2 1200 sqft house with fenced yard was 950 that rose to 1275$, on local pay scale we could not afford that.
Compared to Fla We rented for 975 for a 2 bed apt.
Out here in rural NC our 4bd/3ba 2100 sq foot house and 8.8 acres would be 500,000, if you could find 9 contiguous acres in or near Fort Lauderdale where we moved from, there in Ca ? What several million for arable land a nice view, peace, privacy, our own well, gardens, well old tobacco fields we are turning into an organic veggie farm, orchards and 7 ac of woods we plan to plant native nut trees into.
The place needs a lot of work, but still.

We visited Laguna about 10 yrs ago..35$ would feed us in Fl for 2 wks in Cal it was the makings for one meal and a not extravagant one at that, at least it was fresh. I was totally unaware of the cost of living in Ca.

[HillbillyBob]

7. Yak I had just finished typing and

Anderson Cooper was talking to some fellas about Bunning and the Unemployment extention and I caught the fat white guy saying " I know some guys that go to my goof err golf club that apply for a job so they can continue collecting their UI check" . I know that does not describe any of us here.