Posted on 05/24/2010 6:43:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week, the Senate is expected to extend jobless benefits to more than 5 million Americans through the end of the year. It is the sixth time in nearly two years that they’ve expanded or extended unemployment benefits — putting off, again, a day of reckoning our political leaders seem unwilling to face.
With the national unemployment rate at 9.9% — and 9.8% here in New York City — officials are afraid of what will happen to our cities, our welfare rolls and our struggling economy if these long-term unemployed are no longer given government assistance.
But we pay for this feint in other ways. The government shelled out $140 billion in unemployment benefits last year to an estimated 21 million people. That price tag is likely to increase this year.
This is no ordinary jobs crisis. Compared to other eras, our long-term unemployment numbers are staggering.
Back in the grimmest days of the 1980s recession, the share of those out of work for six months or more never rose above 26%. Today it stands at nearly half the roughly 10 million Americans seeking jobless benefits. In New York City, more than 145,000 are longt-term unemployed.
And economists say this extend-and-pretend policy may be exacerbating the employment problem. Much like housing programs that have kept people in homes they couldn’t afford — and kept payments flowing to banks — when renting might have been a sounder financial choice, the current long-term handouts don’t address the larger economic issues. They don’t give people enough money to increase consumer spending, and do nothing to put people back to work in high-paying jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Whatever you subsidize you get more of................
Maybe it is time to "settle"?
...and the congress just extended the long-term unemployment beyond the fall election. nobama and his minions are creating a communistic/socialistic underclass dependent non them. The guy (nobama) is pure genius. Probably many close to retirement (by 2+ years) hope they get fired. Happy days are here again.
I’ve been in the work force since 1984. Never in that entire time have I ever seen it this bad. The company I work for has seen sales drop off by more than 50% since last year alone, and it’s an open question how long we’ll stay in business if things don’t turn around soon.
Obama took a mild recession and turned it into a depression, thanks to his irrational fixation on turning this country into a socialist bastion.
Elections have consequences. I wonder if the electorate has learned anything?
What are the odds this is a Zero voter? I would say 70%.
How long are we going to listen to these stories?
It’s time for Obama to go.
It is hard to choose, yes? How about all of them?
You don’t get jobs without people/businesses/comapnies HIRING.
Businesses don’t hire if there is UNCERTAINTY. You create uncertainty when you pass laws (like this healthcare monstrosity and soon to come — cap & trade) that forces businesses to scramble to understand its implications on the bottom line.
People don’t realize this, but things are so bad here in New York that even restaurants are being targeted for special audit. These are small businesses that employ people by the thousands and upon whom a lot of livelihood depends.
Read this :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704314904575250794154630652.html
Eateries in Tax Crackdown
Restaurants Targeted in New Audits; ‘I Will Fight That Until My Last Breath’
By SUMATHI REDDY
State sales-tax officials are turning up the heat on restaurateurs, auditing 60% more of the city’s eateries in the fiscal year that just ended than the year before and leaving the industry with a case of agita.
The cash-strapped state conducted 1,077 sales-tax audits of New York City restaurants in fiscal year 2010, which ended March 31, compared with 646 the previous year. Those reviews found the restaurants owed the state $71.9 million in sales tax, compared with $40.6 million the year before, a 77% increase. About a quarter of that has been collected so far.
“We certainly have a need right now for multiple billions of dollars, and we’re trying to do our best through effective enforcement of the current laws to narrow that gap so that the citizens of New York aren’t deprived of important resource or that honest taxpayers aren’t hit with an additional tax burden,” said William Comiskey, deputy commissioner of tax enforcement for the state Department of Taxation and Finance.
Mr. Comiskey said “restaurants are one of the specific areas” that the department is focusing on in its policing of businesses in the so-called cash-based sector.
State officials attribute the main reason for the surge of scrutiny to a new program that allows staff members to review two years worth of sales-tax returns through the mail or telephone conversations to determine if they should conduct a more-detailed field audit.
For the industry, the greater scrutiny has raised questions and concerns.
“Business is very difficult right now. Every penny counts. Every minute you’re not spending working on improving your business, you’re basically losing money,” said Jeremy Merrin, a Manhattan restaurant owner who is currently being audited. “This is really taking our time and focus away.”
Gary Edelstein, a certified public accountant with Stuart Edelstein Linderman in Bellmore, Long Island, said he went from having one or two restaurant clients undergoing a state sales-tax audit to having about 16 in the metropolitan area. “There’s been a huge increase,” he said
Andrew Rigie, director of operations for the city’s chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association, said the group co-hosted a seminar on sales tax and intends to hold more in the near future.
Some restaurant owners say the audits are yet another nuisance for an industry getting hit from all corners.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST
With government acting like thugs harrasing small business owners, is it any wonder why many of them have decided NOT TO EXPAND and thus, NOT TO HIRE ?
Wake up people, we know the problem — TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.
Yet, we keep on voting for more of what’s causing this problem in the first place.
So democrats are going to run on this in November?? This is ‘Change you can believe in” ??
Compare to this: “All Americans will have to sacrifice to put the economy back on track(except public sector workers who funded my campaign), Obama said. “Everybody’s going to have to give, Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game...President-elect Barack Obama said his two-year plan to boost the U.S. economy will generate as many as 4 million jobs, higher than his previous estimates, the biggest portion of them in construction, manufacturing and retail.”: Obama Calls For Sacrifices, Scales Back Campaign Promises, Ups Jobs Program To 4M (January 10, 2009)
The Government Teet is so sweet!
If the unemployment extensions stop and millions who are literally living off unemployment see it come to an end with no real job in site, there will be serious problems. It is the “at least enough to survive” thing that is keeping the peace in this country.
As Gerald Celente sez, “When people lose everything and have nothing to lose, they lose it.”
“Maybe it is time to “settle”?”
She’d do that pretty fast if they cut off her benefits.
I truly hope they have, though given the economic ignorance in this country it wouldn't surprise me to see Obama re-elected in '12.
TREASON.
Imploding...No new jobs in USA..Obama creates jobs for other coutries. Would like to know how many got grants to live like wealthy plantion owners in S. Africa
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