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May 12, 2004

Unemployment insurance extension not passed

Just thought I'd pop in with an understanding of joblessness that most of us of mature age have these days. (Yeah, I'm an over-50 fogey, live with it).

When I took Macroeconomics in College, we were taught that full employment would occur when the jobless rate fell to between 5 and 6 percent.

There are always people who are between jobs, people who quit working to have kids (though those good people can hardly be said to quit working - they work harder than most of us to raise the future), people who decide to go back to school in order to make a future career change.

Most of you were fortunate enough to graduate from college during very good times. That has not been the case with the majority of Americans - ever.

When I graduated from college in 1975, jobs were extremely scarce. But I still found one. Not in my chosen field perhaps, but I found one.

I was layed off a job once many years ago, and I did collect unemployment for 2 months. After a week or two of moping around, I got off my rear and started looking for a job in earnest. I found one. Months and months before my unemployment would have run out.

There are jobs available in this economy. Look at how many people technical companies hire from other countries. Most corporations say that they cannot find the high quality technical types here in the US, so they look to people from other countries, who move here and work here. I only wish they all became citizens, because the US needs good, smart hardworking people here as citizens. The fact is, we have many many foreign workers here in this country who have found good jobs. These people work very hard at their jobs, and are good at their jobs.

Now, this makes me wonder, how many of our fellow Americans are not working because they are not looking for a job, or they are not preparing themselves for a job, or because they will only accept the perfect job?

Unemployment benefits don't come out of nowhere. They come from .... taxes.

I work very hard - you all work very hard. My family got to keep 57% of our earnings last year (after state, local and federal taxes were paid).

Personally, I pay enough in taxes. I would prefer that anyone who is too lazy or too picky to accept a job that may not be perfect is not someone who needs my money. They need to go an make their own.

I have done whatever it takes to make sure I could pay my bills. That includes cleaning houses for other people.

So, I'm happy that the unemployment insurance bill did not pass in the Senate. I am happy that Kerry missed the vote.

I will, however, never vote for Kerry.

Posted by Beth at May 12, 2004 6:20 AM

Comments

My former company had a lay-off last summer. I and 4 others were the "chosen" ones. Being layed off at the end of summer (August) I knew companies would only be hiring for another couple months (compaines tend not to hire after October and not again until February) so I worked the getting a job thing and it took me 7 weeks (I love my new job and am now happy to have been layed off because I would never have found this job!).

You could say I was the higher end job person to have been layed off (Engineer), the other 4 were Production Supervisors. Here in Michigan Production Supervisor jobs are fairly easy to find.

I warned the other 4 to look right away due to the no hire at the end of the year thing. All 4 decided because they were getting 10-15 weeks of compensation from the company and then had 36 (?) weeks of unemployment on top of that they would take a break. Guess what, none of the 4 have jobs yet. I keep wondering why because as mentioned above Production Supervisor jobs are plentyful. All 4 say they don't want those jobs anymore, but none have training for anything else and nothing more than a HS diploma. So they are struggling money wise because they refuse to "lower" themself to take another Prod Supv job. One actually feels they have the experience to get an Engineering job (huh?).

It just amazes me that people feel they are owed stuff when they never have earned it.

Posted by: Machelle at May 12, 2004 8:17 AM

Hmmm - blogless husband was laid off a year ago February. He was in the middle of pursuing his MBA - so he took a year off to finish that. He's been looking since the end of January. First he was trying to stay in this area so we wouldn't have to move. Now he's pretty much sending out resumes around the country.

Resumes that go to job listings in our area, sink into the black hole of Calcutta - never to be heard from again. (too many lay offs around here in the past few years) He's gotten a couple of nibbles in the last 2 weeks, but is still trying to get to the interview stage. He has noticed an increase in the past couple of months in job postings. Now if only one of them will pan out - things will be hunky-dory.

The good part is, with my job we can go with the status quo for a while longer, so we aren't up against a huge monetary problem if we're careful - and we had years of practice being careful. LOL!

Posted by: Teresa at May 12, 2004 5:06 PM

Wow, and people on Capitol hill are still whining? I think you should be on the next cabinet, Beth.

Posted by: Rae at May 13, 2004 12:17 AM

I've been laid off 2x in the past 8 years. The first time I really wanted to stay in my field, so I will admit I was picky. After 4 weeks of not finding anything I started temping. Or tried to. I didn't get any calls. Once we got it straight that I would answer phones, clean toilets, it didn't matter - things started picking up. I had to temp for 18 months that time. Min. wage and tough, tough times. But I made it.

This last time it was 2 years. Again, the day I was told about the lay off I put my resume out there. We had 9 months of warning, and in those 9 months plenty of interviews, just no offers. First day out of work I was temping. It was scary and humiliating (people don't treat temps well at all) but I did what I had to do.

I don't get these people either, that think they are owed anything. Sometimes you have to take what you can get. Just think of it as character building.

I'm glad the bill didn't pass.

Posted by: Tammi at May 13, 2004 8:26 AM