hello. my name is mike ambs.

RE: Unemployment. As something that we’ve already paid into, that we’re getting reimbursed for - then yes, totally. We deserve to get our money back - it’s our right to get our money back. Unlike the other “insurances” you mentioned, it’s something we are forced to be a part of. There are many cases of unemployment being very helpful, on a societal level, of course, but there are also cases of it being exploited, and removing a sense of urgency from people who should REALLY be out either looking for work, or creating their own occupation.

- a facebook conversation between Justin Johnson in response to my comments on The Blood and Sweat Behind Labor Day. My reply to the above:

Well, perhaps this is just my arguing semantics here, but reimbursement seems the wrong word when talking about Unemployment Insurance, the main reason I bring this up is: you mentioned our being “forced” to participate in the program… * a strange choice of wording for an insurance program; the reason being is insurance works best when the pool is larger; the smaller the pool: the higher the pay-in and lower the pay-out. Unemployment isn’t a forced savings-account, which, I know your’e aware of, but the distinction between “reimbursed” and eligibility is worth mentioning. The program couldn’t function with a smaller number of people paying in - the same way a city couldn’t upkeep or build new roads if only people who were likely to use those roads opted to pay those related taxes.

* Also, we are only “forced”, or, more appropriately, eligible through certain employers - the number of contract work I’ve done over the last 7 years hasn’t provided me with many opportunities to pay into Unemployment - and, believe me, when the crash happened two years ago, and I lost my job, I wished like mad I had the option of collecting Unemployment - it would helped me keep my head above water without skipping so many meals.

As for abuse of the Unemployment - okay, let’s look at some numbers of abuse: Ohio has a pretty high percentage of fraudulent payouts when compared to the rest of the country, in the neighborhood of $42 million fraudulent payouts over five years - now take the average of that number per year, 8 million, and, just to put things in perspective here, compare it to the $5 billion that the state paid out in legitimate cases of Unemployment. That breaks down to 0.16 percent. Not even a quarter of one percent of claims are fraudulent, at least in the state of Ohio - if you can find a state that comes anywhere near even 5%, I’d be impressed. Those numbers aren’t terribly shocking.

And again, if only because this point is terribly, terribly important to keep in mind, for every $1 paid out in Unemployment, that multiplies to an average of $1.60 - the idea that someone would look at a state like Ohio, who has been hit so hard, and think it would kick-start the availability of jobs to suddenly have a vacuum of $5 billion… is full-on craziness.

Source: azspot