Whose fault is it? The government? You the tax payer? Or those umemployed themselves? Especially that woman mentioned below, Felicia Robbins, 30 years of age with FIVE kids. If she is not responsible for her own action or the seemingly endless reproduction, why should you the tax payer foot her bill? Thoughts? -------------- By TOM BREEN, Associated Press Tom Breen, Associated Press 36 mins ago Extended unemployment benefits for nearly 2 million Americans begin to run out Wednesday, cutting off a steady stream of income and guaranteeing a dismal holiday season for people already struggling with bills they cannot pay. Unless Congress changes its mind, benefits that had been extended up to 99 weeks will end this month. That means Christmas is out of the question for Wayne Pittman, 46, of Lawrenceville, Ga., and his wife and 9-year-old son. The carpenter was working up to 80 hours a week at the beginning of the decade, but saw that gradually drop to 15 hours before it dried up completely. His last $297 check will go to necessities, not presents. “I have a little boy, and that’s kind of hard to explain to him,” Pittman said. The average weekly unemployment benefit in the U.S. is $302.90, though it varies widely depending on how states calculate the payment. Because of supplemental state programs and other factors, it’s hard to know for sure who will lose their benefits at any given time. But the Labor Department estimates that, without a Congress-approved extension, about 2 million people will be cut off by Christmas. Congressional opponents of extending the benefits beyond this month say fiscal responsibility should come first. Republicans in the House and Senate, along with a handful of conservative Democrats, say they’re open to extending benefits, but not if it means adding to the $13.8 trillion national debt. Even if Congress does lengthen benefits, cash assistance is at best a stopgap measure, said Carol Hardison, executive director of Crisis Assistance Ministry in Charlotte, N.C., which has seen 20,000 new clients since the Great Recession started in December 2007. “We’re going to have to have a new conversation with the people who are still suffering, about the potentially drastic changes they’re going to have to make to stay out of the homeless shelter,” she said. Forget Christmas presents. What the so-called “99ers” want most of all is what remains elusive in the worst economy in generations: a job. “I am not searching for a job, I am begging for one,” said Felicia Robbins, 30, as she prepared to move out of a homeless shelter in Pensacola, Fla., where she and her five children have been living. She is using the last of her cash reserves, about $500, to move into a small, unfurnished rental home. Robbins lost her job as a juvenile justice worker in 2009 and her last $235 unemployment check will arrive Dec. 13. Her 10-year-old car isn’t running, and she walks each day to the local unemployment office to look for work. Jeanne Reinman, 61, of Greenville, S.C., still has her house, but even that comes with a downside. After losing her computer design job a year and a half ago, Reinman scraped by with her savings and a weekly $351 unemployment check. When her nest egg vanished in July, she started using her unemployment to pay off her mortgage and stopped paying her credit card bills. She recently informed a creditor she couldn’t make payments on a loan because her benefits were ending. “I’m more concerned about trying to hang onto my house than paying you,” she told the creditor. Ninety-nine weeks may seem like a long time to find a job. But even as the economy grows, jobs that vanished in the Great Recession have not returned. The private sector added about 159,000 jobs in October — half as many as needed to reduce the unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, which the Federal Reserve expects will hover around 9 percent for all of next year. “I apply for at least two jobs a day,” said Silvia Lewis, of Nashville, Tenn., who’s also drained her 401(k) and most of her other savings. “The constant thing that I hear, and a lot of my friends are in the same boat, is that you’re overqualified.” JoAnn Sampson of Charlotte hears the same thing. A former cart driver at U.S. Airways, she and her husband are both facing the end of unemployment benefits, and she can’t get so much as an entry-level job. “When you try to apply for retail or fast food, they say ‘You’re overqualified,’ they say ‘We don’t pay that much money,’ they say, ‘You don’t want this job,’” she said. Sampson counts her blessings: At least her two children, a teenager and a college student, are too old to expect much from Christmas this year. Shawn Slonsky’s three children aren’t expecting much either. The 44-year-old union electrician in northeast Ohio won’t be able to afford presents or even a Christmas tree. His sons and daughter haven’t bothered to send him holiday wish lists with the latest gizmos and gadgets. Things used to be different. Before work dried up, Slonsky earned about $100,000 a year and he and his wife lived in a three-bedroom house where deer meandered through the backyard. For Christmas, he bought his aspiring doctor daughter medical books, a guitar, a unicycle. Then he and his wife lost their jobs. Their house went into foreclosure and they had to move in with his 73-year-old father. Now, Slonsky is dreading the holidays as he tries to stretch his last unemployment check to cover child support, gas, groceries and utilities. “You don’t even get in the frame of mind for Christmas when things are bad,” he said. “It’s hard to be in a jovial mood all the time when you’ve got this storm cloud hanging over your head.”
why should her kids foot the bill then?
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You’re basically talking about putting a floor on socioeconomic class, which is not irrational. The US does have many institutions that serve as social insurance/welfare. However, wealth disparity is always going to exist in a capitalist society.
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > why should her kids foot the bill then? Hey man, nobody asked her kids to foot the bill. It her that should be responsible for her own life, work and reproduction and build enough financial cushion before giving birth those 5 innocent little ones. It’s her who really put those kids welfare and even health in limbo. Good strawman though, Palantir.
No, he has a point though. It’s unfair that some kids are born into poor families, and others get to be Paris Hilton.
-AS You’re saying that we should not “foot the bill” because they aren’t our concern. Now considering that this woman is clearly unable to foot the bill, therefore the kids themselves should? Moralizing about who should be responsible is great, doesn’t yield any end results though.
Fair point. It’s unfair for one or two kids to be born into poor families… But FIVE? she has no one to blame but herself.
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’ll point out that these 5 kids didn’t choose to be born to her. Exactly, it’s this woman who caused all these problem. And now you and Ohai the tax payers will need to pay for it? Does it sound fair to you and your kids, who work hard and live reponsiblly? Where will these moral hazard end?
Ok now, I don’t understand what you are saying at all.
^^, never mind. we are pretty much on the same page… “However, wealth disparity is always going to exist in a capitalist society.”
Ok, this woman is clearly incapable of taking care of the kids, and you don’t feel the taxpayer should do so. Who do you suggest should take up the burden?
Some woman in the country has five kids and recieved some government assistance. Clearly this means that all unemployed people should be cut off.
This woman has no job, only $500 left, is moving from a homeless shelter into a unfurnished home. As you rightly put “this woman is clearly incapable of taking care of the kids”, and more importantly she is risking the health and well being of the kids. The court and social services should intervene and take the kids away form her, send them to carefully screened adopted families, as they usually do to mothers with drug problems. As for this women, she should figure out a way to support herself as nobody owes her anything. It may sounds harsh, but how else people learn a lesson?
Well, the unemployed people should be cut off because unemployment benefits are supposed to be a temporary measure. They can still get other sorts of state and federal aid.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Some woman in the country has five kids and > recieved some government assistance. Clearly this > means that all unemployed people should be cut > off. Not cut off. Just stop extending them since they are already 99 weeks along. Umemployement benefit for a prolonged period of time is often cited the No. 1 reason for high long-term unemployment.
Same garbage arguments year after year. Anyone here did anything meaningful in 2010 ?
Often cited does not mean correct. If that were true, there would have been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Unemployment benefits are supposed to be temporary measures, true, but recessions are supposed to be temporary too. When the job seekers/job opening ratio improves, then there may be an argument for not extending them. I could also see a program that adds conditionalities for extendig benefits, such as entering some kind of skills retraining program (does CFA count?). That would require legislative action and fits in the “not gonna happen” folder.
As the Greatest Nation On Earth, America should support everyone that cannot or will not support themselves. It is our duty to be sure everyone is Middle Class; bring the lower class up and the upper class down. Financially successful individuals should happily give away their wealth to fund the disenfranchised. Everyone is Entitled to everyone else’s wealth. No one should be without food, education, health care, or cable television. When you pay taxes in April, please pay extra out of the goodness of your heart. Despite everything you’ve heard, it will be spent wisely.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Often cited does not mean correct. If that were > true, there would have been weapons of mass > destruction in Iraq. > > Unemployment benefits are supposed to be temporary > measures, true, but recessions are supposed to be > temporary too. When the job seekers/job opening > ratio improves. Then there may be an argument for > not extending them. > > I could also see a program that adds > conditionalities for extendig benefits, such as > entering some kind of skills retraining program > (does CFA count?). IMO, added conditions are constructive suggestions and that’s how the last democrat president Clinton handled it. It seemed to have worked well.
Pick your poison, taxpayers pay for their unemployment benefits or medical bills because they can’t afford food, medicine, housing etc. and hospitals can’t deny treatment. I’ll take the former.