200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment checks this week

Originally posted by jhn7537
money.cnn.com...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- More than 200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment checks this week, when eight states roll off the federal extended benefits program.

Nearly half of them live in California, and the rest reside in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Texas.

The federal extended benefits program has provided the jobless with up to 20 weeks of unemployment checks after they've run through their state and their federal emergency benefits, which together last up to 79 weeks.

Personally, I dont have a problem with this at all. Unemployment is supposed to be more of a safety net, not a long term solution. I feel that people around the country grow complacent and lazy when they know they have a check thats always going to be rolling through. People need to stay motivated, they need to stay on the job hunt and they need to try to better themselves. It cant always be left up to the government to handle everyones personal issues. What I hope is that we dont see an increase in crime (robberies, muggings, etc.) because desperate people start resorting to desperate measures committing crimes.

My question to ATS is, do all citizens here in the United States deserve a basic financial protection?

And they will join the millions like myself who dropped off weeks months and years ago. Its not as simple as saying they need to be motivated to stay on the job hunt. I searched for over two years and could not get hired. There seemed to be a lot of jobs but there are hundreds applying for every job and I could not get the time of day. I finally found a job back in January for half what I was used to making and got laid off a month and half later. I said screw it and am doing handyman work etc. so far so good but when winter hits handyman work pretty much dies on the vine.

Normally I would agree with not extending benefits but in this case they stole it from me and the millions of others who paid into for the last 30 years so I feel no shame in getting as much of it back as I can for as long as I can. Yeahs some are lazy and unmotivated but the majority would rather be working then worrying about when their check will be cut off.

The problem is there are not enough jobs to go around hundreds of thousands of business have folded and many more have down sized and laid off. So we need to stop blaming this on the people on unemployment and put blame where it belongs and it belongs squarely on the politicians and banksters and corporate interests who have taken over the government imposed this false monetary system on us and by so doing crashed the economy and stolen the wealth of a nation! The Zombie Apocalypse is real the sheeple are the zombies dutifully going the the motions of supporting the lies of elitist electing the same hacks over and over or so they think not knowing the elections are rigged etc etc.

Since then, I have worked miscellaneous temporary/part time jobs. Some of those employment opportunities included delivering pizza and warehouse dock work.

Ok.. so you choose to leave your vocation to deliver pizzas. I've been in IT for 25 years, and I'll be damned if I am going to lose all that experience because I don't want to be a "burden" to unemployment. Are you kidding me? All the 10's of thousands of dollars of taxes and fees and a lot of other crap I never wanted to partake in, and you are telling me I should feel GUILTY for accepting it?

I've not taken a dime of unemployment yet. But when I do, I won't feel an ounce of remorse.

If you stay out of a job for an extended period, especially IT, you lose your edge. It's a quickly changing field. I choose not to become a permanent factory worker, because I am too "proud" to accept unemployment. Not that unemployment would even begin to cover what I was making before. The max you can make is 500 bucks a week in Colorado, as you must know. The most you will be paid is 13k if you use it up. Guilty? No.. I don't think so. You have a lot of gall telling people they are lazy because they don't choose to work a minimum wage job, instead of spending all their time trying to find an equitable position doing what they were doing previously.

It's funny how people in this country are conditioned to feel horrible if accepting help from the government. In many countries, they offer a LOT more aid - in health, education, you name it. More time off, they let their families come first. No.. here in the States, work 80 hour weeks, and feel guilty if you are daring to take a dime from the government.

In most states one must report what efforts they are making to find employment to maintain benefits and if they are not found to be actively seeking employment, or are not "available for work" they will lose their benefits.

I see a number of people blaming the situation these 200,000 people are in, solely on the unemployed people stating that it is their own "laziness" that has resulted in them being unemployed for such an extensive length of time, I suppose that might be the case for some, I won't discount the idea that some will always take advantage of the system, but I would disagree with the sentiment that such applies to all.

US Companies outsourcing jobs overseas as a means of obtaining cheap labor, instead of employing people in the US, is an issue, especially when their profits are primarily obtained by selling goods and services to people within the US.

Our government claims that undocumented workers are necessary for companies, to do the work that legal US workers won't do. Do people over all really believe that? It seems to me it would be more truthful for them to say that undocumented workers are necessary for companies, because legal US workers know about their rights as employees and are unwilling to accept a job that, does not pay at least minimum wage, requires employee's to work unlimited overtime, without being payed for anything more than 8 hours (I worked for a company that did exactly that back in the late 70's), a company that does not carry insurance that covers their employee's in the event of an on the job, no fault of their own injury, that does not allow breaks or lunch periods, and so forth.

Our government also allots so many work visa's per year for Companies that cannot find employee's with sufficient skills and education to fill their positions within the US. Seriously do people really believe that there are no prospective employee's within the US that have sufficient skills and education to perform these jobs? That there are none intelligent and skilled enough within the US??

Listening to that rhetoric it almost sounds like our Government is telling us and the world that we are lazy and stupid

In a good economy I can understand the need within the agriculture industry to employee undocumented workers or at least workers from outside of the country. Because in a good economy, the majority of able bodied workers are already committed to full time, secure jobs, and the manpower needed to walk beans, pick fruit, and so forth during normal growing season is not available. But I really see no valid reason for companies to require non US workers for either end of the scale, (those jobs they "say" US workers won't do, or those job they "say" US workers can't do) aside from agriculture.

Our government is allowing US businesses and corporations to give jobs to people from other countries, that US workers can and will do, not so they can pass the savings on to us, but so they can reduce the costs of manpower(those lower level positions without which the company would have no product or service to sell), claim higher company profits and increase the salaries of their top level executives.

Sure there are jobs out there, but when 100 people are competing for the same position, at least 99 will be turned away. No matter how sure one is that they are more than capable of doing a specific job, if the employer requires a specific amount of experience, it doesn't matter how confident one is of their abilities, if they can't meet the experience requirement they are out of luck. Although age to an extent is not supposed to be discriminated against, someone not far from legal retirement age is less likely to obtain a position in many companies. For example those around 50 who have lost their job's due to the economy, who want to work and have taken classes to obtain a new more marketable skill set, will still face solid road blocks, many employers will be asking not only for the skill-set, but also require specified on the job experience. It's no picnic, they might submit thousands of resume's and only get a handful of interviews.

Believe me, I have been there to an extent. I had a career in chemistry and worked for the same company since 1981, I liked my job and had no plans to leave. I worked with computers as a hobby, and earned a few certifications. In 2001 I developed a life threatening sensitivity to chemical fumes and after 20 years I had to leave the job I loved and start all over, I was 40. I felt fairly confident though that with the computer skills and certifications I had earned, I would be working in the tech field in no time. I was wrong. 2 years, and thousands of resume's later I had only been interviewed 5-10 times.

Originally posted by ratcals
I'm 49 years old and I have NEVER collected unemployment in my entire life. So seriously, you can't find any job in 79 weeks? Not buying it.

Me too
I'm 49 years old and I have NEVER collected unemployment in MY entire life. So seriously, you can't find any job in 79 weeks? Not buying it. I'm unemployed. Great, now more competition for the job I want. Ditch digging for me now.

America!
Wake up you are losing more than your unemployment checks, the whole damn system is messed up, all the hard work we did throughout our history to make a better America is being destroyed by Super Foreign elites who waged war on our whole belief system and now our Declaration of Independence is being hacked up. You know 9/11 is a sham so why you allow it to continue? What the hell you are doing people, stop being fed poison by food,medias,and false promises which already proved they destroyed our nation.
You vote for Obama you vote for the elite to rule, he showed you his charming election face and showed results what he did not do for us and now runs again and promise to end us all once for all.

We are now on the very footstep of total destruction, what are you waiting for? for it to be too late...They no longer withhold their evil plans towards us and the world they show and tell you what they are going to do in movies,dramas and news over and over. They ruined you with fake money, credit cards and false tax services and so on..they made you become in debt. they want us to fail, they have the upper hand on us now, they used your monies to to build weapons not to take on the world but to take America, the conspiracy is no theory its real and it happening before your eyes right now, go ahead watch T.V. listen to radio, send your kids to school to learn hate and sex, read your defying papers, listen to your corrupted govt. go ahead get fat, smoke weed do drugs do what they want you to do because when the time comes you all are easily controlled and taken for granted and obtained and eliminated forever. Is this what you want? You all just spent 9 months listening to the politicians battling out who is better, but in reality Obama is already a winner from the start, it was one long roller coaster ride a diversion to get you not to think much about what they are doing to you in the mean time.... Wake up the end is near and you may be nothing soon if you keep eating burgers and watching trash t.v.
Crazy people say I am crazy..am I? while you all enjoying 90210 or American Idol i was watching trains bringing in huge amounts of weapons, watching secret death camps being built, watching psychotic airports being built, naval yards stocking up on boats and ships, and they tell you its preparation for a possible Iranian war...Yeah right so Colorado is the launching platform for military weapons right? okay well you know what, you just sit there and laugh at my article and say i am crazy and a nut job...but when the time comes i will be high on the mountain top looking down at you over fed brainwashed cattle being herded up to be slaughtered and than we see who laughs first. Take care and hope you wake up before its too late..tomorrow is already over what are you going to do now? Peace.

This is about Obama-jad getting votes. How can a person on unemployment NOT vote for Obama when he promises to extend the benefits for another year+?” Do you think all the people on unemployment are going to vote for another candidate who doesn’t want to extend the benefits? I think not!

Originally posted by fleabit

Since then, I have worked miscellaneous temporary/part time jobs. Some of those employment opportunities included delivering pizza and warehouse dock work.

All the 10's of thousands of dollars of taxes and fees and a lot of other crap I never wanted to partake in, and you are telling me I should feel GUILTY for accepting it?

I've not taken a dime of unemployment yet. But when I do, I won't feel an ounce of remorse.

edit on 12-5-2012 by fleabit because: (no reason given)

You will feel a little guilty. I know you will, you have pride, you even quoted it. .

Originally posted by jhn7537

Originally posted by LightWarrior11
If they truly wanted America to be number 1. All college for Americans would be free.

Why is college free for f'ing immigrants but for American citizens it's about 50k and up.

There needs to be differentiators in the world today, a college undergrad and MBA are exactly that... If everyone had a college degree they would pretty much be meaningless/pointless....Thats why college needs to cost the student money, they need to care enough to want to get one...

It should be based more on merit, then how much money or connections you have. Otherwise I agree with what you say. Still 50,000 per year for any instuttion is RIP-OFF CITY even if it is yale or harvard....Education is not everything, what is more important is what you do with it later on in life.

Originally posted by RoScoLaz

Originally posted by Propulsion
I live here in Denver Colorado etc etc...

that's a very unfortunate attitude you have, in my opinion.

Could you please elaborate?

Stop acting as if your normal previously working employee WANTS to stay on unemployment for as long as possible. How ridiculous.

If you made 50.. 60.. 70k a year on a previous job, the 500 a week you'll make is not going to keep you living how you used to live. Almost all would try to get an equitable job as soon as possible. Not only for the pay, but for the BENEFITS. Most working Americans want the health insurance. It's a pretty crucial benefit that you won't get if unemployed.

MOST of those who are unemployed who were laid off during recent hard economic times, are probably actively looking for work. Looking down your noses at them is not a very brotherly thing to do. Has nothing to do with being "lazy." They don't want to flush 15 or 20 years of their careers down their toilets, so they can work at a fast food joint or a factory.

Originally posted by EarthCitizen07


Much better to get a vocational education in something you like, but then again everything is being mass produced in asia with cheaper labor...so it is really a no win situation with perpetual underpaid(and many times unprotected) labor.

Well, EarthCitizen, unfortunately that is precisely the rub....and to add insult to injury, we are forced to live with the effects of global economy (its great when its good, no one suffers) yet, we can't easily re-locate to GO to the -vocational OR otherwise- jobs.....if picking up and moving were EASY, sans Visas, sans a multitude of anal reaming that one must go through PLUS typically a 2 year or better wait BEFORE being able to be gainfully employed in your new location, then I could almost live with the global economy faux pas.....but we can't (and this is true no matter WHAT country you reside in)....

The government will give bail outs to any big business or banking institution if they go under, but when it comes to the people who make it happen they turn their backs and say "too bad! your problem not mine! ".

You will feel a little guilty. I know you will, you have pride, you even quoted it. .

No, I won't. Because I am a logical, thinking person. And the money I PAID over the years was exactly FOR this sort of contingency. So I should feel guilty on getting some of it back? I don't think so.

Also, consider: the U.S. pays 20 times more in defense than the next 20 countries COMBINED. Many other countries spend THEIR money on helping their citizens. I find it hilarious you feel bad because your government makes bad decisions on spending. Had our government invested their money more wisely, there would be a lot more aid for those in need at home.. instead of us helping every other country other than our own, because we are trying to forward our oil / power interests abroad. I see the bigger picture.

The bum hanging out on the street corner bagging for money isn’t any different than the people trying to get unemployment after two years. It’s pure laziness! The jobs ARE out there. People are too proud to take them.

Here's some input from a normal USA citizen who has been without work for almost 2.5 years now.

I'm NOT on unemployment at all. It's been horrific trying to survive and raise my child with the wee income I get from my school loan refunds every 4 months. I feel SO bad for those who are losing unemployment when zero places are hiring. Oh, I'm in Illinois for the record.

If it weren't for food stamps we would have starved. I had to give up my 300/mth apartment a month ago and move into housing (which is beautiful; brand new buildings, 2 story townhomes basically and zero drugs as this is a small southern illinois town in a dry county (means zero alcohol is sold in the county) just to have an affordable roof over my head while my job hunt keeps on and on and on.

Those poor people. I wonder how they're going to survive now? my heart breaks for them so badly. I know MANY people who look constantly for work and just can not find a single thing at all. With so many people out of work, all jobs are extremely picky now. One position opens up and you get 3 hour long lines waiting to fill out apps/interview.

Something has to give soon. Those 200,000 are going to be on the street, getting food stamps, or resorting to crime to feed their families out of desperation now.

Sooooo good, USA govt. Take the only means to ensure one can survive - and have one job opening available for hundreds upon hundreds to fight over, just to have more dashed dreams.

There are better things to stop funding than keeping the CITIZENS alive, having a roof, electric and food.

Priorities, USA govt. You have it wrong.



PS for the record, I'm a min wage worker. I'm in school trying to get my bachelors. still got about 2 years to go. So to the hateful person above who claims people are lazy if they're out of work for 2 years, I kinda hope you lose your job. See how it really is. I could name hundreds of places I have religiously applied at over and over soon as the app hold period is up. How many interviews I've had only to be told there are tons more interviewing and 'dont call us, we'll call you as the demand is so high, we have to keep the phone lines open for business'.

Those of you posh in your jobs.... I cant STAND how you lord it over those who don't have work. I hope you walk a mile in my shoes and feel horrific that even TACO BELL won't hire you because some first time job teen is hired over everyone else.

Oh yeah, tons of other jobs are available - I'm NOT a pipe fitter. I'm NOT a plumber. Or a CDL holding semi licensed driver. I'm not trained in healthcare. I'm not this or that. I'm a cashier. I'm a waitress.

Originally posted by ColCurious
The so-called U.S. "welfare system" is obviously not working properly, so they might aswell just abolish it.
It's obviously set up wrong and doesn't even deserve to be called "social security". It's an insult to the actual, working systems.

If you argue from the "responsibility and independence" angle, I agree with you, but that's an educational issue. There seems to be a problem with work ethics and appreciation / accessibility of education in the U.S.

To all who argue from the "financial" angle ("a social system costs to much, why should I pay for it?"), you will see that less aggregate demand and more criminality overall (resulting from high unemployment) will cost you more in the long run than a properly working social / educational system.

Welfare is a state level program mostly for those that get transferred from disability programs.

Social Security is mandatory federal program for everyone regardless if you are setup for a private pension and/or are already rich. It should be for people who NEED it and have put in the appropriate amounts before they retire.

Originally posted by Propulsion
The bum hanging out on the street corner bagging for money isn’t any different than the people trying to get unemployment after two years. It’s pure laziness! The jobs ARE out there. People are too proud to take them.

It's not always as cut and dry as that though....Sometimes those jobs that "ARE out there" .... are in FACT, out there....and for some, it becomes an exercise in futility to even consider them....if they DO have transportation, then it becomes cost prohibitive (after travel, parking, or train/bus) to consider them....will it pay the rent or mortgage or even LIVING expense? If not, will I need to relocate, and if SO, will I be able to afford the deposit plus the rent plus the ongoing travel expense?

You can't discuss such a complex problem by dismissing it as "they ARE out there" and then dropping the ball as though you have all the answers.....pride may be an issue in a small percentage of the cases, and I'm willing to concede to that, but the broader majority wishes to feel GOOD about themselves and their ability to be a proactive part of their community.

Originally posted by Germanicus

Personally, I dont have a problem with this at all. Unemployment is supposed to be more of a safety net, not a long term solution.

So what happens to these people now? What will they do?

And dont you care?

Edit- I find the basic lack of empathy in America to be disturbing. And it seems to go beyond a lack of empathy. It seems many Americans delight in the misfortunes of others.

Also,there are no jobs. Your corporate overlords sent them all to China and India. What are these poor people going to do?

edit on 11-5-2012 by Germanicus because: (no reason given)

Edit- Do any other countries in the West have such a terrible cruel welfare system? I have never heard of one.

edit on 11-5-2012 by Germanicus because: (no reason given)

What will they do?

They should accept the fact that there are no jobs because technology has essentially replaced the human worker. Yes. That is the pink elephant in the room.

So guess what? Its time to go back to school and acquire new and updated skills.

If all a person knows how to do is say, "Would you like to add fries to that?", a robot/ machine can do that now...

call center "What information can I give you about your account?" / People can go online or ask the automated system for this information

Warehouse/ factory? Robots and machine can do it for free

Check-out clerk? They have self-scan checkouts

This is why I returned back to school. For years, I worked in call centers and ignored the fact that one day I would need a degree. I didn't take heed to management requiring us to always remind the customers that they could go to the automated system or online for the information that they were looking for...we were being replaced by the machine.

Basically, as technology advances, humans are literally going to have to become more efficient. The customer service industry, banking, and warehouse/factory jobs ARE going overseas, because they don't have to pay them as much....then that particular job will leave forever.

If a robot can do it, you better learn a new skill.

The bum hanging out on the street corner bagging for money isn’t any different than the people trying to get unemployment after two years. It’s pure laziness! The jobs ARE out there. People are too proud to take them.

Right.. ok.. so although my wife has a medical issue, and is going to school, I should be "too proud" to take a minimum wage job.. and get her discounted meds, or take her off them entirely, tell her to quit school and get a job, we move to a much cheaper apartment, sell my car, and live off raman. Yea.. ok, you keep living in a land of fantasy.

The average time to find a job for a professional right now is around 8 MONTHS. And most logical, thinking professional employees use their unemployment to live until they find a job that allows them to NOT have to tear apart their current life... just so they won't feel "lazy" or "guilty."

My government has no problem spending more money in one DAY in Iraq for example, than would pay ALL teachers in the U.S. for a YEAR.. and yet I should feel bad I am spending the governments money?

Originally posted by ratcals
I'm 49 years old and...

Well, that says it all, doesn't it? I can't quite see through all that pompousness you've got reeking off you. You are completely out of touch. Many of us that haven't been an adult very long can't find anything. You need experience to work and can't get it without working. A single job at McDonalds opens up and five thousand people apply for it. You get lucky and get that job and they work you so few hours that it doesn't even pay for the gas you spend to get there! But hey, you don't buy it. Also good luck getting even the lowest of the low jobs if you aren't an extrovert, doesn't matter if you're going to be in a backroom carrying vegatables all day, they want a super-salesman. Trying to tell people like you about reality is like talking to a wall.