HALF of Americans can make more in unemployment benefits than they would at work under stimulus package

UK Daily Mail ^ | 29 April 2020 | Chris Dyer

[Mr Rogers]

Unemployment benefits boosted by $600 as part of Congress stimulus package

Average weekly payment up to $978 - increased from almost $378 last year

Half of full-time workers earned $957 or less a week in the first quarter of 2020

Around half of all workers in the US could earn more in unemployment benefits than in their jobs before the coronavirus decimated the economy, official figures have revealed....This increase added to state benefits should give an average weekly payment of $978. On average almost $378 was paid in unemployment benefit to each claimant last year, according to the Labor Department.

On average half of full-time workers earned $957 a week or less in the first quarter of this year - around $20 a week more [less? DM is never good at math] than the combined unemployment benefits, the figures show....Some workers appear to be better off being laid off in order to receive the extra benefit, instead of staying on the payroll for a job with potential reduced hours.

According to calculations by the New York Times, workers in more than half of states will receive, on average, more in unemployment benefits than they did from their normal salaries.

[Starcitizen]

That $2400 extra didn’t even bring me to half of my former salary. And the soonest my job will return is next Spring at the earliest. Without it, I’m at 25% of my former salary. 75% of bills don’t disappear magically. Some creditors actually became MORE aggressive in bills collections, with one calling me 10 times a day. Wants me to give my entire UI to them. To which I promptly say fuck off and hang up the phone.

Absolutely no jobs in my field that doesn’t require Indian citizenship or some sort of active clearance. To which I have neither, my secret clearance expired in 1987.