What does this say about our character as a nation?

[cdrumm4448]

What does it say about our character as a nation that we bail out banks and then they won't give loans to people?

 

What does it say about us that we're quick to point fingers at the poor but not help them, much less point fingers at the rich?

 

Why do we assume those who are poor could, with minimal effort, be Warren Buffet? Why do regular people stand in solidarity with the super rich? Why do we assume someone who is financially poor is also morally bankrupt?

 

The government shouldn't bail out anyone.

 

"Regular people" sometimes stand with the rich. Sometimes they don't. I still think amassing wealth is part of the American dream, as is owning a home. I spent ten years selling real estate as a broker and I can tell you not everyone is ready to own a home. Everyone should have the right to work to qualify financially to own one, but you aren't born with the right to home ownership.

 

I think we rely too much on credit. I think we should save for what we want, then buy it. We have a mortgage because we choose to. There's a lot of security in doing things that way.

[goldberry]

She is a new single mom raising two kids on her own with no support from her ex. She is on every benefit the state will allow. She gets food and free health care and child care. Plus, she is taking college classes that the state is paying for. She has a job. If she ups her hours any more, she will lose the nearly all the benefits. Her job doesn't provide health insurance, so she'd lose that. She'd lose the money for her college classes, so she'd have to drop out. She would probably make enough for food, but probably not for child care. So, I guess, from the outside, she looks like one of these lazy people taking advantage of the system - unwilling to work more hours to get off state support. Those of us close to her know differently.

 

She HATES being on public assistance. But, she sees it as a short-term thing. When she finishes college, she'll be able to get a job that will pay her well enough to get off of it.

 

The cases I know of friends on public assistance are very close to this one. It is the system that is broken, set up as an all or nothing thing rather than a transitional thing.

[Trish]

I live near Detroit and I see a lot of this. I used to judge until I had a friend in this situation. She is a new single mom raising two kids on her own with no support from her ex. She is on every benefit the state will allow. She gets food and free health care and child care. Plus, she is taking college classes that the state is paying for. She has a job. If she ups her hours any more, she will lose the nearly all the benefits. Her job doesn't provide health insurance, so she'd lose that. She'd lose the money for her college classes, so she'd have to drop out. She would probably make enough for food, but probably not for child care. So, I guess, from the outside, she looks like one of these lazy people taking advantage of the system - unwilling to work more hours to get off state support. Those of us close to her know differently.

 

She HATES being on public assistance. But, she sees it as a short-term thing. When she finishes college, she'll be able to get a job that will pay her well enough to get off of it.

 

I bet the same is true for many in this story. They are not only receiving unemployment checks, but the state is probably also providing food assistance and health insurance. If they take a job at $10/hour, they cannot live on that, but they lose a lot of the other assistance.

 

Now, I'm sure there are those out there who are just taking advantage of the system. And, that's a problem. But, seeing my friend go through this, I do have more sympathy.

 

Of all the stuff the goverment WASTES money on, this would seem to be a good use for government money.

[SKL]

Cost of living varies drastically across the nation. A family of 4 would struggle anywhere in the U.S. with one wage earner at $10. In some areas (New York), it would be impossible without significant government assistance.

 

Not everyone receiving unemployment has to single-handedly support a family of 4. There are plenty of people in a city like Detroit for whom a $10/hr unskilled job is appropriate and sufficient. Granted, cleaning toilets is not fun or glamorous, so why do it if you can be paid not to?

 

I do understand the argument that maybe it's the employer who is unattractive. However, maybe there were a number of employers with similar issues but this guy is the only one who went on the record, for whatever reason.

 

I also agree that there are things about our aid programs that make it hard to get off them, even when you want to. Honestly, I don't even think the fixes should be that difficult. The problem is that politics trumps rationality many times over when it comes to benefits in big cities.

[Meriwether]

LOL, yeah, that was my takeaway too. If people are even coming in to interviews and then turning down the job... um, that's a red flag that it's not that nobody wants to work, it's that nobody wants to work for this guy.

 

That might be true but it is more likely that they have to do so many interviews to stay on assistance.

[Rivka]

LOL, yeah, that was my takeaway too. If people are even coming in to interviews and then turning down the job... um, that's a red flag that it's not that nobody wants to work, it's that nobody wants to work for this guy.

 

That might be true but it is more likely that they have to do so many interviews to stay on assistance.

 

Why is that more likely?

[QueenCat]

Why is that more likely?

 

It is often a requirement for assistance that you prove you are actively looking for a job. A friend of mine explained the process to me when she was going through it. She had to fill out a weekly form which showed her "job seeking" activity.

[OH_Homeschooler]

By the way, isn't the invisible hand of the market supposed to deal with situations like this? If he can't find someone to work for him at the wage he is willing to pay, why hasn't he sweetened the offer any? You can't just sit back and expect that qualified employees will be handed to you!

 

He hasn't sweetened the offer because it's easier to call on news sources and complain that no one wants to accept your offers (because they're lazy)!

[Bluegoat]

It is often a requirement for assistance that you prove you are actively looking for a job. A friend of mine explained the process to me when she was going through it. She had to fill out a weekly form which showed her "job seeking" activity.

 

So everyone who has gone to be interviewed - all of them - in a city with serious employment issues - it too lazy to work and is just trying to get assistance? Not one person in Detroit willing to take this guy's fair offer?

 

That doesn't seem terribly plausible.

[momma2three]

It is often a requirement for assistance that you prove you are actively looking for a job. A friend of mine explained the process to me when she was going through it. She had to fill out a weekly form which showed her "job seeking" activity.

 

I've been on unemployment, and it's a requirement that you be looking for a job, but not a requirement that you go to interviews. All you have to do is say that yes, you're looking for work and that you sent out a resume. It doesn't even have to be true: they don't check or anything. If you're a lazy individual, I doubt you're going to the effort of actually getting dressed up and going out to a job interview.

[Jennifer in MI]

The cases I know of friends on public assistance are very close to this one. It is the system that is broken, set up as an all or nothing thing rather than a transitional thing.

 

Isn't it sad? I just spoke with my friend to clarify. She upped her hours at work - six more hours each week. Because of her increased salary (of approximately $50/week), her food assistance decreased by $200 and she LOST her medical. Lost it completely.

 

She said she isn't going to ask to decrease her hours because she doesn't want to appear lazy to work. But, realistically, she needs to. God forbid, she get sick.

[akmommy]

Cost of living varies drastically across the nation. A family of 4 would struggle anywhere in the U.S. with one wage earner at $10. In some areas (New York), it would be impossible without significant government assistance.

:iagree:Where we're at a single person could only survive on that with room mates. Rent here is kind of crazy and with two military bases nearby I can only see it getting worse as more soldiers come home. The electric company is robbing people blind (dont even get me started on that one) and most homes here are heated with deisal fuel (currently over $4 a gallon).

[Donna]

I don't have time to read all the responses but I think what it says about our nation is that our government is helping people in all the wrong ways. There is no incentive for people on assistance to work because their assistance will be cut and they will not be able to survive or provide for their families. Those who want to work find that if they work, there is suddenly no help at all because they "make too much" and the amount of money considered "too much" is way too little.

 

I have known way too many single mothers who want to get a job but have no way to do it because they cannot get a job that makes enough money to provide and if they do get a job, any job, they cannot support their child/children. Also, there are no programs in our area for daycare assistance which is what most of them really need in order to go to school to get enough education for a decent job or to get a job in the first place.

 

For those who don't want to work and know how to work the system, there is not enough monitoring to get them off. There was a report here recently that spoke of hundreds of millions of $$ in unemployment fraud here in our state...hundreds of millions of $$!!!

[Tarreymere]

Personally, I'd love nothing more than to see my tax dollars go to pay for education, child care, and health care. That darn sure makes a lot more sense to me than paying for someone to remain on unemployment because then they don't have to worry about their child having health insurance or their chronically ill spouse not being covered (as was our case).

 

 

:iagree:I would much rather pay for those things, and things like the weatherization program we have locally, and heating assistance and all of that kind of thing than some of the really stupid and unnecessary things our government seems to find more important. It seems like even local government can find creative ways to waste money, but has some kind of block when it comes to funding the least little program that actually help the people who live in the area.

 

As for the OP's original concern, yeah I've known people who have ridden the unemployment train as far as it would take them when they KNEW there was work available, even more hours available at the job they already worked and planned to increased their hours at anyway once their unemployment ran out. I've known people who deliberately refused to work full-time 'just because'. I've even known people who coached their kids to feign mental illness just to apply for disability. There will always be scammers.

What in my own experience tends to at least cut down on the incidence of this kind of scamming is to require some kind of time commitment from the recipients, like asking them to report in at 8 am three days a week to work on community service type jobs or assisting with a volunteer program (reshelve books at the library, help at the soup kitchen, plant flowers at the courthouse, ect) or that kind of thing for four or more hours a day with childcare provided. Everyone in the community benefits with a requirement like this. The closest thing we have to something like that in my area is some kind of employment readiness class that cash assistance recipients have to take (9am and I think three days a week). I'm not sure how long the recipients have to take it, but while it is a good idea I don't think it is enough.

[4everHis]

I don't have time to read all the responses but I think what it says about our nation is that our government is helping people in all the wrong ways. There is no incentive for people on assistance to work because their assistance will be cut and they will not be able to survive or provide for their families. Those who want to work find that if they work, there is suddenly no help at all because they "make too much" and the amount of money considered "too much" is way too little.

 

I have known way too many single mothers who want to get a job but have no way to do it because they cannot get a job that makes enough money to provide and if they do get a job, any job, they cannot support their child/children. Also, there are no programs in our area for daycare assistance which is what most of them really need in order to go to school to get enough education for a decent job or to get a job in the first place.

 

For those who don't want to work and know how to work the system, there is not enough monitoring to get them off. There was a report here recently that spoke of hundreds of millions of $$ in unemployment fraud here in our state...hundreds of millions of $$!!!

 

:iagree: You did a good job of clarifying the many problems. Even when I try to imagine ways to fix the system every 'fix' causes new issues. :tongue_smilie:

[4everHis]

:iagree:I would much rather pay for those things, and things like the weatherization program we have locally, AGREE and heating assistance and all of that kind of thing than some of the really stupid and unnecessary things our government seems to find more important. It seems like even local government can find creative ways to waste money, but has some kind of block when it comes to funding the least little program that actually help the people who live in the area. Agree again!

 

As for the OP's original concern, yeah I've known people who have ridden the unemployment train as far as it would take them when they KNEW there was work available, even more hours available at the job they already worked and planned to increased their hours at anyway once their unemployment ran out. I've known people who deliberately refused to work full-time 'just because'. I've even known people who coached their kids to feign mental illness just to apply for disability. There will always be scammers.

What in my own experience tends to at least cut down on the incidence of this kind of scamming is to require some kind of time commitment from the recipients, like asking them to report in at 8 am three days a week to work on community service type jobs or assisting with a volunteer program (reshelve books at the library, help at the soup kitchen, plant flowers at the courthouse, ect) or that kind of thing for four or more hours a day with childcare provided. Everyone in the community benefits with a requirement like this. Great ideas. The closest thing we have to something like that in my area is some kind of employment readiness class that cash assistance recipients have to take (9am and I think three days a week). I'm not sure how long the recipients have to take it, but while it is a good idea I don't think it is enough.

 

:iagree: