I AM one of the long-term unemployed myself. I lost my former 6-figure, 20-year IT career last fall and have not been able to get another job in the field at all. I very easily could have been one of unemployed you speak of who has lost everything, but I saw all this coming last year before I actually got canned and my family took steps to prepare and get the situation under control before we got buried.
We started early working to eradicate all debt - no credit cards, car payments, etc. My wife went back to work and we sold our overpriced suburban McMansion last summer into the declining market, but thanks to the flaming hoops we were willing to jump through in order to get and keep a buyer, we got it sold and came out of it with some cash in hand.
I also completely cashed-out my 401k after getting laid-off and did the only rational thing I could do with it: used all of it as a huge downpayment on a much smaller house in a less expensive town. So now I'm in my 40s with no retirement savings whatsoever, but at least we have a place to live with a mortgage that is now is smaller than the SECOND mortgage on our previous house.
I've also gone back to school at an inexpensive community college to retrain to do something else, worked my butt off to ace my classes and put the young kids to shame, and am now very close to landing a job. Yes, if get lucky I'll be making A FIFTH of what I used to make before my layoff, but we've endured the sacrifices and altered our lifestyles to where we'll still be secure.
So yeah, I can legitimately claim that unemployment IS a disincentive to find work. I was getting more from my UI benefit than I'll be making when I go back to work - what would you do in this situation?
That’s nice that you were able to manage the situation. Of course, you had the benefit of a spouse’s income, plus you had a savings plan. People that are unmarried don’t have that option or other salary to fall back on. It’s also less likely that they have enough savings to live on. But that’s not even the point here.
The point is...you claim that receiving unemployment benefits disincentivizes people (meaning ‘other’s...not you) to look for and find work. You also fail to understand the plight of those ‘others’ when they may not have another spouse’s income to rely on, while you make only 1/5 of what you’re used to making.
Here’s a clue....IF you could get hired for a job making 1/5 of your former salary, it wouldn’t be enough to live on. The chances of even getting that job are slim to none, since the employment application usually asks how much you made at your last position and if you are honest, they won’t hire you. They’ll figure you’ll bolt as soon as you find something better (rightly so). If you lie and say you made less, and they check, you won’t get the job.
Now...unless you made $100,000 a year, 1/5 is not going to be enough to live on. I only made $50,000 a year. 1/5 of that would barely just pay my rent. Even at $70,000 a year, 1/5 of that would only be about $1,200/month. Great if you have another income to fall back on, or if you’re living with mommy, but not so great if you’re on your own. Get the picture?
I’ll say it again. In normal times, these claims would be valid. These are, as you already know, not normal times. The fact that you’d even have to consider taking a job making 1/5 of your normal salary attests to that fact. Between the number of applicants per job, the overqualification and previous salary factor and the age discrimination factor for those of us over 50, it’s a bleeding nightmare out there. And it’s getting worse, not better.
All I’m saying is....stop and think about others that are not so fortunate as you are before you make blanket statements that, even if you didn’t intend to, condemn those of us that are still unemployed through no fault of our own.
Be a compassionate conservative...not just the faux cliche that the left throws out there and uses against us due to our fiscal conservative policies.