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mahakali wrote:

I know a middle aged woman who used to work as a caretaker for disabled, injured her back, and got an UC. She wasn't very wise with it though. She used it for partying for months until she realized she only had several hundreds left.

Now THOSE are the people I'm talkin' about!

Yankee Rose wrote:

mahakali wrote:

I know a middle aged woman who used to work as a caretaker for disabled, injured her back, and got an UC. She wasn't very wise with it though. She used it for partying for months until she realized she only had several hundreds left.

Now THOSE are the people I'm talkin' about!

Note that the problem fixed itself, she ran out of money, and didn't keep getting money.

Yankee Rose wrote:

Gee .... and welfare does?

I personally would much rather take a job at my local McDonalds' than lower myself to accept welfare.

Do you have children?  Do you worry about them getting sick?  Your local McDonald's won't pay enough to put a roof over their heads, much less food on the table or afford daycare while you work.  Welfare at least provides health coverage.  Oh, but don't get sick or hope you don't have to stay at home with a sick kid - you don't have sick leave.  So if you're a reasonably healthy individual with no dependents, then your scenario works.  That's not true for most people.

We've lost a lot of good jobs.  The new jobs being added aren't.  They don't pay well, they don't provide benefits.  Illegal immigrants may have lowered expectations in this regard, but that doesn't mean Americans should.  Of course, even illegal workers deserve things like decent pay, benefits, etc. - which is why worker permits are a good idea.

Is it really wrong to expect that people who go to work and do their jobs get paid a living wage, maybe have a few sick days (or Zeus forbid, vacation time!), health coverage, etc.?

Unemployment is usually limited to a certain dollar amount.  I went on it once (during the dot bomb days) and was told based on my work and income (and the amount my employers paid in payroll taxes for unemployment), what my benefit would be and how long it would last.  But I could work part-time and extend that.  So they encourage you to find something else.  It's temporary and designed so that people can survive while they look for another job.  If I was offered a comparable job and I refused it, I could have lost my benefits.  Employers who have lots of turnover and unemployment claims have to pay higher payroll taxes.  I was offered a job at a much lower pay rate (40% cut) - and it was long term.  I told them I'd do it for a month or two, but wouldn't commit to the full term and they told me that I couldn't do it and they wanted someone who would stay the whole time.  So they told unemployment and tried to get my benefits pulled.  I appealed, they lost.  Not a perfect system, but not horrible either.

mahakali wrote:

I believe in the US it's paid by the state. I've never met anyone who abuse it but I know a middle aged woman who used to work as a caretaker for disabled, injured her back, and got an UC. She wasn't very wise with it though. She used it for partying for months until she realized she only had several hundreds left.

I thought unemployment was at least partially paid by the person's previous employer....

robco wrote:

Yankee Rose wrote:

For a non-union paying job requiring physical labor?  That's pretty good sturner.

Perhaps where you live.  Where I live, that's barely above minimum wage.

Back in '83?  The minimum wage in '83 was $3.35.  $10 would be about 3 times minimum wage back then.

robco wrote:

yankee rose wrote:

But she did abuse the system by squaloring the money given to her by the government.

Yes, so let's generalize that one case to everyone else and say that everyone else is lazy and irresponsible. 

Come on now ... you know it is more than "one case".  Otherwise there wouldn't be a stereotype . . .

Yankee Rose wrote:

Back in '83?  The minimum wage in '83 was $3.35.  $10 would be about 3 times minimum wage back then.

You want to go by twenty years ago?  I live in the Bay Area, the minimum wage here tends to be higher than the rest of CA, which tends to be higher than the rest of the US.  Even at $9.14/hr today, that's not enough to scrape by - barely enough if you have two people working minimum wage jobs.

But if seasonal workers can get unemployment in the off season, why shouldn't they?  Many of them don't get paid time off, the off season is their "vacation time".  My uncle was in a similar situation.  He worked construction and couldn't work year round.  He made great money while he was working and worked long hours and never took time off.  When he couldn't work, that's when they'd take the kids on vacation and such.  So don't speak of the situations of others if you don't know specifics.

yankee rose wrote:

Come on now ... you know it is more than "one case".  Otherwise there wouldn't be a stereotype . . .

Stereotypes aren't always true though are they.  Do all African-Americans listen to rap and hip hop and drive around in pimped out Escalades and speak in Ebonics?  No, they don't.  Are all Asians computer science nerds who can't drive?  No.  Are all white people uptight businesspeople or uneducated rednecks?  No.

If you want to cite a study using a representative sampling and actual data, be my guest.  If you're just going by your own personal experiences, then you can't speak in general terms - only about what you have experienced.

Yankee Rose wrote:

Metacell wrote:

Yankee Rose wrote:

IMO, way too may Americans "qualify" for it.

Yeah, damn those moms and their burdensome babies.

  How does that play into this conversation?  I was referring to too many working Americans qualifying for unemployment.

OK - here is something to consider:

Those of you who are in favor of those collecting unemployment benefits over working a "McJob", as robco so eloquently put it -

Do you realize that you are technically supporting "illegal immigration", whether inadvertantly or not?

The hard physical labor jobs out there - regardless of what they pay - are very difficult to fill because too many Americans don't want to WORK those physical jobs.  They want to take the easy way out by collecting unemployment (if they QUALIFY).  Employers are then forced to hire whoever they can to do the work - illegal or not. 

The American work ethic is not what it was in past decades.  Too many people want something for nothing.

It isn't about "wanting something for nothing", it is about getting a legitimate paid compensation for one's work. It's an exchange.

All too often it is the employer who is asking for "something for nothing", more often than not the labor jobs in question are the ones most likely to have on the job injuries, even death, and they are the LEAST likely to offer any form of compensation. They leave that to the state.
In other words the taxpayer is subsidising the employer far more than the employee.

The jobs in question would have far many more American workers applying for them if they offered even a modest living wage and workman's compensation/health benefits.

The fact of the matter is the  majority of households recieving welfare and public assistance are households where 2 family members are working over 40 hours a week.

Matter of perception perhaps Yankee Rose. It taught me that I had the opportunity to do other work, work with my mind, not my muscles, and that I preferred that kind of work. The men I worked with encouraged me to get my college degree and not settle for working in a physical labor market. They wished that they had my opportunity.

I fully appreciated that. Doing the heavy end of engineering work taught me that if I had the choice I should be operating the heavy equipment instead of shoveling gravel into the hopper of a front-end loader. And if I had the opportunity, be the engineer rather than a heavy equipment operator.

Last edited by sturner (2007-02-07 4:19 pm)

I have worked a fulltime job all my life since I was 18 years old. Thats 32 years of productivity. Out of that time I have spent a grand total of 6 months on unemployment.
I won't apologise nor feel guilty at all about that. I earned that safety net by the sweat on my brow and anyone who wants to take that away from the working man can just go die right now.
Seriously revolutions have been fought for less.
Yankee Rose: your husband simply fails to offer competitive wages.
I have been hearing that "no body wants to work" crap from people all my damn life and what it really means is an employer is pissed off that wages have risen and he does not want to pony up to compete.

robco wrote:

You continue to miss the point.  More Americans might be willing to fill these positions if the positions offered decent wages and benefits.  If unemployment pays more and I can look for another job, why wouldn't I choose that?

You also repeatedly miss the point that most people on welfare or unemployment aren't there by choice.  Some people are disabled and can't do physical work.  You're getting really pissed off about a very small percentage of people on these programs.

I think you are missing MY point in that if more Americans were to take the positions filled by "illegals", then we wouldn't have the problem.

You state that most Americans on UC are not there by choice.  While that may be somewhat true, as I previously stated the problem I have is with those Americans who CHOOSE to accept it over taking a physical labor job.  Albeit it may be a small percentage, but they are the ones who I refer to.  They are the ones I call lazy. 

This argument is like a vicious cycle.  And, BTW, you haven't even begun to see me p*ssed off. 

Pariah wrote:

I have worked a fulltime job all my life since I was 18 years old. Thats 32 years of productivity. Out of that time I have spent a grand total of 6 months on unemployment.

As stated before, it isn't the folks like you who I have the beef with.  You obviously have a good work ethic.

Pariah wrote:

Yankee Rose: your husband simply fails to offer competitive wages.
I have been hearing that "no body wants to work" crap from people all my damn life and what it really means is an employer is pissed off that wages have risen and he does not want to pony up to compete.

That statement is laughable.  Glad to see you have a sense of humor.  My guess is you think fruit comes from the store, too.

I'd imagine that most people on unemployment want to keep their time available to continue job hunting, and taking a lower wage labor job would interfere with that.  Refusing to take that job when one's UC runs out would be where there might be an issue.  But the point of UC is to provide an income while unemployed so a person can find a similar job.  Complaining about people using a program for what it was intended seems asinine.  And of course if the person does no searching for work in that period then they'll have an issue when it runs out.

Yankee Rose wrote:

robco wrote:

You continue to miss the point.  More Americans might be willing to fill these positions if the positions offered decent wages and benefits.  If unemployment pays more and I can look for another job, why wouldn't I choose that?

You also repeatedly miss the point that most people on welfare or unemployment aren't there by choice.  Some people are disabled and can't do physical work.  You're getting really pissed off about a very small percentage of people on these programs.

I think you are missing MY point in that if more Americans were to take the positions filled by "illegals", then we wouldn't have the problem.

You state that most Americans on UC are not there by choice.  While that may be somewhat true, as I previously stated the problem I have is with those Americans who CHOOSE to accept it over taking a physical labor job.  Albeit it may be a small percentage, but they are the ones who I refer to.  They are the ones I call lazy. 

This argument is like a vicious cycle.  And, BTW, you haven't even begun to see me p*ssed off. 

Pariah wrote:

I have worked a fulltime job all my life since I was 18 years old. Thats 32 years of productivity. Out of that time I have spent a grand total of 6 months on unemployment.

As stated before, it isn't the folks like you who I have the beef with.  You obviously have a good work ethic.

Pariah wrote:

Yankee Rose: your husband simply fails to offer competitive wages.
I have been hearing that "no body wants to work" crap from people all my damn life and what it really means is an employer is pissed off that wages have risen and he does not want to pony up to compete.

That statement is laughable.  Glad to see you have a sense of humor.  My guess is you think fruit comes from the store, too.

A few years ago I left one pressman gig for another and enjoyed a $4.00 an hour jump in pay in my new job doing EXACTLY the same thing as before.
I knew some people who still worked at my old place and my old boss complained that there was no way he was going to pay that sort of rate and I was lazy and my new boss was nuts.
Thats the typical scenario and thats far from the only example I could offer up.
There is no such thing as a labor shortage. What there is is businesses who refuse to meet the market price for labor.
If you cannot fill a position for $10 an hour you are not offering enough. It may be your opinion that $10 is perfectly decent pay for the job but obviously the market disagrees with you.

If by illegal immigration you mean Mexicans coming to the US then yes I support that. If you mean illegal immigration by keeping laws tight on Mexicans and letting them come in so capitalist pigs can exploit them then no I don't support that. I don't support the US calling these people Illegals and I don't support the persecution and the demonizing of them. 

The US has been exploiting Mexico and Mexicans for many years so the government owes the people of that country. If you want to stop "illegal immigration" you have to take away the reason they flee their country. They flee because their country is poor. They are poor because through the World Trade Organization their natural resources are raped from them. They have no chance of change because the US suppresses democracy in Mexico. If you want an end to illegal immigration support the dismantling of Nafta, Cafta and the WTO. Also support a more isolationist approach to politics in the US.

If you don't support that then you can't say anything about Mexicans being illegal. You can't have your cake and eat it too. When you rape the value of Mexico you can't expect them to stay there.

Last edited by Vindo310 (2007-02-16 3:41 pm)