My experience over my lifetime has shown when people are receiving unemployment either from the government or in the form of a severance package, that they stay unemployed as long as the money they are receiving keeps coming in.
I remember a family member who got laid off from a technology company years ago. He swung by the house to tell us he had lost his job, we expressed concern... but he said no big deal he had 2 YEARS to find another job before his severance pay ran out. As soon as he left, I turned to my wife and said “I will bet you dollars to donuts he doesn't get another job for a least 2 years” and ....
I was right.
He lived off that severance for exactly 2 years, and then SUDDENLY found a job! shocking!
lol
You see, conservatives see that world how is actually is, not how we would LIKE it to be. And I know human nature, and knowing human nature... I know that most people are LAZY. Knowing that most people are lazy, it becomes quite easy to predict their behavior. If you provide for someones every NEED for X amount of time, they will sit on their lazy butts until X amount of time is up.
It's that simple.
Sure, there are a few tiny jobs out there ... but being someone who has always worked “crap” jobs, the crap jobs are filled.
For every position at Mcdonalds, there is 80 applications.
And that is a problem ... and if you can’t see that that is a problem ...
People losing their jobs because of the economic downturn was NOT their own fault ... and I dare someone to tell me that otherwise.
The economic downturn was caused by governments bad policies ... housing bubble followed by stupid business practices from major corporations and reward by the government... plain and simple.
Is there any way you could write a book on all of this? Or teach a seminar on how simple it is? Funny how you talk about people seeing the world how they would LIKE it to be and then go on and paint millions of unemployed with a broad brush based on one example. See where I'm going here?
Okay....but what about a situation where you are actually earning more on unemployment than you would be working? What would you tell people who have no other source of income to do? This is sometimes the case if the fulltime job you lost was relatively lucrative. (Over 40k annually)