Tag: unemployment benefits

Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation

Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation: Senate bill seeks to take away unemployment benefits from millionaires

Posted on by Alex

This is an interesting bill from Rep. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Apparently, there are about 3,000 millionaires that currently receive unemployment benefits from the government. So, while the country suffers from a growing deficit, Rep. Coburn wants to kick those millionaires off the unemployment rolls with S. 310, also known as the “Ending Unemployment Payments to  Jobless Millionaires Act of 2011.”

At first glance, it seems like a good idea. But no matter how distasteful it might be, it’s not a logical solution.

People don’t receive unemployment benefits for being poor. They receive benefits because they were laid off through no fault of their own. As part of their benefits package while working, their companies paid the unemployment tax. So, these jobless millionaires deserve that money just like anyone else. They earned it. You can’t retroactively take that benefit away.

Of course, a good millionaire would try to give back that money or donate it some cause (preferably to help other unemployed people). But creating a law to deal with a few thousand people would be more than a waste of time, it would create a class system with respect to unemployment benefits.

And aren’t conservatives always going on about how rich people shouldn’t be punished for success?

Rating: 3 teabags

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Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation, The Unemployed Life

Bipartisan Guide to Ridiculous Legislation: Unemployed? Florida lawmakers want you to work for free

Posted on by Alex

Picture this scenario:

Your longtime job of 10 years laid you off. You were making an honest $40,000. Suddenly, you’re thrown into the same lot as thousands of other Floridians — unemployed with no job prospects. Hesitant, you apply for unemployment benefits. A few weeks later, you receive a check for $275. You look for work, online and off, unsuccessfully. After two months, belts tighten more. Your meager savings is almost depleted. The bills are piling up. You stop driving around filling out random applications, trying to save the gas for actual interviews or referrals.

Then, one morning while drinking day-old coffee, you read in the local newspaper that the Florida Legislature has mandated that you find an organization and work for them. For free. No money for gas or child care.

Call it volunteering.

That’s the latest unemployment-related bill — that does nothing to fix unemployment, by the way — from state Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, a Naples Republican.  She’s the sponsor of HB 509, which is currently in the Economic Development & Tourism Subcommittee.

The Unemployed Life

10 lessons I learned from unemployment

Posted on by Alex
Department Of Labor Hosts Job Fair For Veterans At U.S.S. Intrepid

So my long lapse of unemployment has ended. No, I’m not writing news again — just product descriptions for a few well-known online retailers. Not the ideal job, but in this economy, I’d be lucky to have a job at Taco Bell.

So, how do I feel? One part relieved, two parts depressed and another half-part anxious. The latter comes from a feeling I’ll always have after my first lay-off: This could happen again. In fact, my current employer already seems a little shaky; they laid off 8 people just last week.

Anyway, I’ve been working for a few weeks now and I’ve had some time to reflect on my year of unemployment. What have I learned?

Dispatches from the Sunshine State, The Unemployed Life

Did you really have to lay me off?

Posted on by Alex

Do Florida employers really have to lay off so many workers during this recession?

Perhaps not, says Sheri McWhorter, president of the local company Workplace Legal Solutions and a certified member of the Florida Bar. In an article for the Bay Area Business Magazine, McWhorter cites a little known provision in Florida unemployment law that allows companies to reduce employee work hours while the state gives those employees pro-rated unemployment compensation to make up for the lost money.

It’s called Short Term Compensation and it might actually save some companies money in the long run.

Here’s a snippet:

Florida is one of 18 states in the country offering a Short Time Compensation (STC) program to assist employers in reducing payroll costs, while keeping their workforce intact.  Under the STC program, employers reduce employees’ work hours by between 10 and 40%, and employees receive prorated unemployment benefits to help replace earnings lost due to the reduced work schedule.  The goal of this voluntary employer program is to help businesses reduce payroll costs during the down economy by using unemployment benefits to offset the cost of full time wages, while allowing them to maintain their workforce rather than laying off full-time employees.  This way, when the economy improves, employers can increase the work hours of their existing employees rather than having to recruit and hire new employees, which may also help reduce future recruitment and training costs.

STC plans provide an alternative to layoffs by enabling businesses to apportion payroll reductions across a larger group of employees than they would have in the absence of an STC plan.  For example, rather than lay off 20% of its workforce, an employer might reduce the work hours of its entire workforce by 20% (i.e. move from a 5 day to a 4 day workweek).

Read the rest of the article here.


The Unemployed Life

Unemployment benefits or food stamps?

Posted on by Alex

That’s a choice the government has already made for some jobless folks.

From The Consumerist:

The economic recovery plan includes a nice little $25 a week bump for unemployed folks — but for some it comes with a catch — they no longer qualify for hundreds of dollars a month in food stamp benefits. Whoopsies!

It seems that when the government raised the unemployment benefits — they forgot to raise the income cap for food stamp eligibility — and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

The Unemployed Life

Florida throws a bone: Extended benefits to the unemployed

Posted on by Alex

If you’re unemployed like me, you’ve probably heard about the extended benefits program for Florida’s jobless, mostly likely while waiting on the Agency for Workforce Innovation phone line. So, you are probably — like me — completely freakin’ confused about the whole thing. How do I apply? How many weeks do I get? Any extra requirements?

Here’s the short answers:

You apply either by mail (the state will send you application) or at the online site you normally claim your benefits from after you’ve exhausted the normal benefit limit. You get up to 20 weeks, provided you don’t find a job before then. There are no extra qualifications, but you may be asked to provide proof that you’ve been looking for work at least twice a week. If you have all those e-mails, letters and application copies saved on your computer, now is a good time to compile them.

I don’t have time to put all the details in Alex-speak, but I hope the following couple links help you out:

  • FAQ by the state. This has a little bit more info about your work requirements.
The Unemployed Life

Florida unemployment office’s 35-year-old computer down

Posted on by Alex

Who knows if the ancient system used to process payments for Florida’s 250,000 unemployed workers has finally kicked the bucket. But over the last two days, while trying to fill my claim, the online system has given me a peculiar error message:

unemployment screen shot copy

I tried calling this morning and the automated phone system tells me the computer is “down.” WTF?! I’m hoping this is somehow related to the positive changes at the Agency for Workforce Innovation. To handle a huge influx of calls over the last 18 months, the state is outsourcing some work to an Orlando call center. Hopefully, I say. Because if the state’s unemployment benefits computer database crashed, we’re going to have some angry, broke people in the streets. Including me.

If anybody has some clues as to what’s going on, please comment below.

The Unemployed Life

Unemployent: ‘Yup. It sucks.’

Posted on by Alex

A fellow blogger posted a link about me on their website a while back (thanks!) and in the same post, referenced another unemployed journalist: Christine.

I’ve been fairly lucky receiving my unemployment benefits for the first time, so it has been hard for me to offer advice here. But Christine, apparently, has been through the ringer dealing with our antiquated unemployment system:

The majority of you will be forced to navigate your way through this governmental body’s miles of red tape and voice mail. You will spend anywhere from 35 minutes to 15 hours a month on the phone or computer fighting for your unemployment compensation money. And when you do finally get a check, it will hurt your feelings. If this is the only income you are receiving, there’s no possibility of retaining the lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed.

Yup. It sucks.

Read the rest here.

I’m really interested in your own stories, too.

Behind the News, The Unemployed Life

Proposed Florida law seeks drug testing for the unemployed …

Posted on by Alex

statesenatorbennett. . . Because, obviously, everyone on unemployment in this bountiful economy are unmotivated, crack-smoking losers.

SB 2062 would require Floridians collecting unemployment benefits to undergo random drug testing. To top it off, they would have to pay for their own test.

This slap in the face comes courtesy of Florida State Senator Michael S. Bennett, a Republican from Bradenton. He’s 64, Baptist and hails from the Midwest. Besides finding ways to demean laid-off workers, Bennett enjoys long walks on Siesta Key, gutting smart growth initiatives, running retirees out of trailer parks for fun and profit, and — well, looky here — taking campaign donations from a company that sells drug testing kits (h/t to the Raw Story for pointing that out).

In addition to the obvious constitutional issues, Bennett’s law faces some problems of practicality. Even though workers would pay for their own drug tests, our cash-strapped state would need to invest in clinicians and a whole new bureaucracy inside the Agency for Workforce Innovation. But most of all, SB 2062 (HB 969 in the Florida House) furthers the humiliation many workers feel after losing their jobs.

In the words of Bill Piper, a director for the Drug Policy Alliance: “. . . to require someone to pass a drug test to get their unemployment insurance after they’ve been laid off is pretty cruel — and to require them to pay for the test themselves is even more cruel.”

The complete outrageousness of this bill leads me to wonder what Bennett and Co. are smoking up there in Tallahassee. In the interest of finding out what that substance may be, I propose a compromise:

Under only one circumstance should SB 2062 become law — if an amendment is added that requires the random drug testing of state lawmakers.

I nominate Bennett to take the first one.