Uh... No, they don't.AndyC wrote:I seriously don't get that mentality at all - have these people no sense of ethics or even some pride?
Now, regarding Unemployment Insurance, I don't have a problem with it, so long as it doesn't drag on too long. Employers are already paying for it, and the legislature isn't going to get rid of it. Some people A) do not have the benefit of a second family income, and B) were not earning very much money to begin with, so they don't have any other income or savings to coast on while looking for another job. So since the unemployment insurance system is already in place, I want people to use it so they can keep paying their rent and bills and buying food while they look for a job.
That said, the tracking system that keeps track of where people have applied should include data about what the starting salary offered is for each open position that the unemployed person "applied" for. Then, when a job offers $45K and the applicant demands $80K, the TWC can eliminate that particular job application from the job searcher's list of jobs applied for so that they don't get credit for it as part of their search. Also, job applications where the level of education and experience required are not commensurate with the applicant's resumé should be eliminated from being credited. That way, only realistic applications will be considered as valid to the applicant's search.
The system ought to help a jobless person replace what they have lost with something in kind. It shouldn't be used for a worker to take a sabbatical and get paid while he sees what he can do to better his lot in life. That kind of betterment needs to happen on his own nickel, not on his former employer's or the taxpayer's.
For the record, after my former employer committed suicide and the company closed its doors, I applied for unemployment benefits........about two months after I lost my job and had had a so far fruitless job search. Nobody wanted to hire a 55 year old person with my job skills at anything close to the salary I was earning. I'm not just talking about just a cut in pay, I'm talking about a 50% cut in pay. By the time my first "payment card" arrived from TWC, I had already taken such a underpaying job out of desperation. In fact, I sold the guy on hiring me at a little over half of what I had been earning. After two months, he had buyer's remorse and let me go.......from a position for which I was vastly over-qualified. 2008 was a tough year for the printing industry, and it hasn't really gotten any better. That is when I made the decision to start my own business, and I haven't looked back since. It's been a rough time to start a business, and my income nets out to less than I was earning at that last job, but at least I don't have to put up with someone else's crap. Anyway, that first card had something like $300+ on it, which I took my sweet time to spend because I had that other job by then, and I never got another payment from the TWC.
Really, dealing with TWC was more trouble than it was worth—which is how it should be so that only the most desperate take advantage of it. It takes a special kind of lazy to actually make the effort to try and game that system, and you have to be willing to receive pennies on the dollar of your actual value as an employee—which is fine if you were a minimum wage employee to begin with, but is unacceptable if you had built a lifestyle based on considerably more income than that before you lost your job. Actually working is easier and less hassle. What really sustained me during that time, and continues to help out today as I grow my business, was savings, and interest on investments; but you couldn't pay me to deal with TWC again. I don't know how anyone else can stand it.