Unemployment benefits are essentially a mandatory insurance policy your employer and the employee are forced to pay on your behalf. You can’t opt out. So while you are employed this is in effect coming out of YOUR paycheck.
The correct way to handle unemployment is either:
- make the coverage optional so that the employer can pay more money up front to the employee.
- Pay out all benefits in one lump sum just like any other insurance settlement with a valid claim on a loss.
If paid in a lump sum most people would have incentive to find work immediately.
How many times has he done this with unemployment?
Trillion dollar Job Stimulus?
Cave GOP again.
“””Unemployment benefits are essentially a mandatory insurance policy your employer and the employee are forced to pay on your behalf. You can’t opt out. So while you are employed this is in effect coming out of YOUR paycheck.””””
Maybe it’s different where you live. Around here it comes completely out of the EMPLOYERS pocket. When the unemployment fund gets low our rates go up. As an employer I have had enough of this “emergency” unemployment funding. It needs to stop.
So, you would pay out 26 weeks worth of benefits in the first week of unemployment? Or 99 weeks in the first week?
A better solution is to pay out a decreasing amount each week. Start at the normal amount and decrease the benefit by $10 to 20 a week. That would inspire a job search.
That's the way unemployment benefits worked for years. I have been both employer and employee, so I can verify that the employer pays a rate based upon the remuneration to each employee AND the employer's history of layoffs, i.e. if you never lay people off, the percentage of salary which you pay for the insurance premium goes down.
However, my understanding is that these 'extensions' are both Federally mandated and Federally funded. In other words, welfare subsidized by the taxpayer.
I have not been an employer during the Obamanation, so I would defer to someone with more complete knowledge.
Yes, I thought as much.
The EXTENSIONS are not funded in the same manner as normal unemployment benefits, rather they are:
“EUC is a 100% federally funded program that provides benefits to individuals who have exhausted regular state benefits. The EUC program was created on June 30, 2008, and has been modified several times. Most recently, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-240) extended the expiration date of the EUC program to January 1, 2014.”
http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/supp_act.asp
Correct way is to get the gov’t and the employer out of the mix.
Setup Unemployment Savings Accounts (like they used to have, or at least like I *USED* to have, Health Savings Accounts):
- Pre-tax
- Self owned
- Moves with, from job to job
- Ding ‘em for ‘use’ if employed during the year
Course, that would take power and influence away from D.C. so I know it’ll never happen.
Otherwise, I agree with you; they’ve (gov’t) has distorted what INSURANCE means (SSI, Unemploy, etc.)