Posted on 02/12/2014 1:44:35 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
The end to federal jobless benefits for nearly 2 million people has sparked a bitter debate in Congress about whether Washington is abandoning desperate households or simply protecting strained government coffers.
It is also providing real-time answers to a question economists have long pondered: How do people survive when they suddenly have no money coming in?
Studies show that about a third of the people cut off from long-term unemployment benefits will find help from Social Security or other government programs. Others will cobble together dwindling savings or support from family. But most baffling to economists are the people who appear to come up with more-idiosyncratic solutions, which are tough to identify and almost impossible to track.
~snip~
Never in more than 65 years have so many workers been without a job and without a government lifeline. Congress cut off 1 million people en masse in December when it permitted a special emergency program for the long-term unemployed to lapse. Since then, their ranks have been growing by about 72,000 a week, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), which lobbies on behalf of the jobless.
~snip~
Last year, lawmakers cut the maximum benefit to 73 weeks. Then, at the end of December, Congress let federal aid lapse altogether.
Mitchell Hirsch of NELP said people were “thrust essentially overnight from a situation where they were struggling to make ends meet with their benefits into one where they’re now struggling just to survive.” Six weeks later, he said, “what we’re hearing . . . is increasingly desperate.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Given a choice of people with equal credentials, one of whom is presently employed cleaning toilets without a brush, and one unemployed, most employers would pick the guy/girl cleaning the toilets. There is no better way to GET a job than to HAVE a job. ANY job.
They get a job. We watched a family member wait out to the very end of benefits before getting a job ... it ended, they got a job.
The Money Fairy really exists?
Easy. They come to your house, kill you and your family, steal whatever you had left, and then kill the neighbors next door until eventually they end up killing each other and the muslims take over what’s left. That answer it for you?
that’s very common.. they cut back and decide they really like the lifestyle... then when the money runs out they find something...
I moved...that’s how I handled it. I never found a decent job in Detroit and I tried and tried.. finally gave up at age 35 and joined the corporate world here in Los Angeles. I’ve been here since 1985.
I understand. But there are millions out there who do.
Sure he exists. He’s up in post 15 right now.
Looks to me like the graph data is related to when or as the production of goods sold in the USA became products of goods made in foreign countries.
I have a family member who is doing this. She is taking the least amount of credits that still qualify her for financial aid and student loans. She brags about it.
I had a guy offer me a job yueaterday, gas staion/convenience store clerk. I’m 68 years old and do not want a job. I politely told him as much.
Who buys our exports after our tariffs are increased? You seem to think no other country will retaliate with matching tariffs because we’re the USA.
Which ignores a fundamental of searching for jobs.
In any area which is growing, specialized jobs open up, sure, that may be the driving force behind the economic boom. When the inevitable influx of people comes, other systems end up hiring, too, from city employees, hospitality industry, medical industry, sales, even the post office, and every other industry which normally takes care of the myriad things and services people need in a community, especially one which is expanding.
In short, fracking technicians are only a small part of the picture, all boats rise on that tide.
There is a lot more to it than just producing oil wells.
Reminds me of the last line of Paul Muni in “I Was A Fugitive From A Chain Gang”;
Helen: How do you live?
James Allen: I steal.
What exports? We export to China 1/4 of what we import from them.
Wrong answer.
Raising import tariffs (taxes ) on US is no magical cure anymore than raising the minimum wage is.
I still remember what cars were like in the 1970s when US auto manufacturers had a monopoly and this one Ford I bought cost more in repairs then the original price of the car new.
I recall the Ford dealer breaking stuff and denying it when I brought it in for work, when they weren't on strike.
Japanese imports got us to work.
191 Billion in exports to various countries last time I looked. No, they don’t all go to China, but China and other countries will retaliate with their own tariffs.
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