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"What it has gotten you is a UI check. Take away the check, there's no point in bothering" Wait, the sole reason these people were looking for a job was to get

"What it has gotten you is a UI check. Take away the check, there's no point in bothering" Wait, the sole reason these people were looking for a job was to get a steady unemployment insurance check?

Ensorceled 13y ago
Yes. They are not getting jobs. They can't get jobs because there are few jobs and those jobs aren't going to the long term unemployed. But, to get UI you MUST be looking for a job. So, they are fruitlessly searching for jobs they know they won't get solely to get the cheque. They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque.
- buckbova 13y ago
  "They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque." Will they really? Would you take your family out into the streets? I suspect they'll double down on their efforts and possibly take a job that they suspect was "below them". For the rest, it's off to the welfare line.
  - Ensorceled 13y ago
    Yes, they will. Because they've given up hope. I would like to think that I'd personally be one of the people who keeps trying. But if I was getting constant rejection, I'm not sure how many YEARS I'd keep trying. Many of the long term unemployed have never recovered from the 2008 down turn, some have been unemployed longer than that. That's 5 years or more.
  - rickhanlonii 13y ago
    >a job that is "below them" This is absolutely not why people are not getting of UI to take a minimum wage job. Right now, if they were to accept a minimum wage job, they would lose UI and get paid less for the job then they are getting from UI. It is financially advantageous to stay on UI in those cases. Without that incentive, they would take the low wage job, but they would have to get on welfare/food stamps which the rest of us have to pay for. So, tax payers are either paying for UI or subsidizing the difference between what those employees are paid and a living wage. The solution to this mess is simple: Make companies who are profiting billions share those profits and pay their employees a living wage. You do this by raising the minimum wage. With a higher minimum wage, it would become a financially sound decision to get off UI and work a minimum wage job, and taxpayers wouldn't have to pay the difference.
    - buckbova 13y ago
      "You do this by raising the minimum wage." I don't mind this, but I don't see it to be the solution. These multi-billion dollar corporations will find a way to cut out the labor using more automation in workflow or they will out-source this work. What I'd like to seee is tarrifs go up considerably. If you want to offshore your labor then we'll make up the difference at the dock when you offload your goods.
      - padobson 13y ago
        That automation costs money (read: labor) to develop. It also costs money (read: labor) to maintain. Either hire unskilled people at the higher minimum wage or hire skilled people to install and service your automated stuff. Either way, you're hiring people. On another note, if we're going to be a progressive society, we need to start being more progressive with the way regulate businesses with things like the minimum wage. Making McDonald's (1.8mm employees, $27.5 billion revenue) pay the same minimum wage as Fred's Burger cart (3 employees, $73k revenue) is ridiculous. Small businesses should be able to pay a lower minimum wage than bigger businesses, if we're going to be a progressive society. If we're not going to be a progressive society, then there's no reason to talk minimum wage in the first place.
        buckbova 13y ago
        Many McDonalds locations are franchises, so they are actually individual businesses. They aren't paid by McDonalds but by the franchisee.
        padobson 13y ago
        I don't think this changes the point. A single McDonald's franchise would pay its employees a different minimum wage than McDonald's Corporate, and Fred's burger cart would still be paying a different minimum wage to his two employees than both. If you find there's some legal manipulation that could go on so larger companies could avoid paying the higher minimum wage, well, then that's no different than every other progressive law on the books.
  - woodchuck64 13y ago
    I too, would think they would double down. But Matthew Yglesias seems to think that UI recipients have no interest in actually finding a job. Yet his article identifies the root problem as "long term unemployment" rather than "no interest in work".
  - jellicle 13y ago
    > take a job You seem confused about the reality that there are no jobs. The equation for millions of people in the United States today is: apply for 1,000 jobs, get zero offers. So out of the zero jobs offered, which of the jobs that are below them should they take?
    - buckbova 13y ago
      http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm "The unemployment rate declined from 7.3 percent to 7.0 percent in November, and total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 203,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in transportation and warehousing, health care, and manufacturing." Must have been the last 203,000 jobs. Apparently according to you there are now 0 left.
      - Ensorceled 13y ago
        The unemployment rate did not drop to 0. It dropped to 7.0 percent. That means 10.9 million people in the US are still looking for work and can't find it. What is your point again?
- avemg 13y ago
  The obvious response to that is to suggest that these people are looking just hard enough (wink,wink) to keep their benefits but not actually get hired by anyone and once you take away the free ride they'll start making an honest effort to find work. I don't agree with that, but I find it hard to refute when it comes up. Are there any good, fact-based arguments that prove this idea to be false?
  - Ensorceled 13y ago
    The fact that employment can add 200K jobs in a month. When jobs open up they are filled. There are around 11 million unemployed in the US. There are not 11 million employers looking for people that can't find anybody willing to work. If there was, everybody would have the UI benefits cut off for not taking those jobs.
- aggieben 13y ago
  Taking away the UI check is just as likely to incentivize people to look for jobs they can actually get, as opposed to constant, documented "looking" so they can continue to draw a check.
  - prodigal_erik 13y ago
    McDonalds had a "national hiring day" a couple years ago and hired 62,000 people out of a million. That's some 900,000 people willing to flip burgers who were turned away. Where are the jobs they are avoiding which they could actually get?
lnanek2 13y ago
Yep, I've seen that quite a bit. For example, one guy walked into Barnes and Noble, asked for a job application, they said they weren't hiring, he said it's OK, he just needs it to get his UI check.
- nickff 13y ago
  Yet another instance where the government encourages activity, not productive activity.
loudmax 13y ago
The point of them registering as unemployed was the UI check. Many of them had already given up looking.

"What it has gotten you is a UI check. Take away the check, there's no point in bothering" Wait, the sole reason these people were looking for a job was to get a steady unemployment insurance check?

Ensorceled 13y ago

Yes. They are not getting jobs. They can't get jobs because there are few jobs and those jobs aren't going to the long term unemployed. But, to get UI you MUST be looking for a job. So, they are fruitlessly searching for jobs they know they won't get solely to get the cheque. They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque.

buckbova 13y ago
"They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque." Will they really? Would you take your family out into the streets? I suspect they'll double down on their efforts and possibly take a job that they suspect was "below them". For the rest, it's off to the welfare line.
- Ensorceled 13y ago
  Yes, they will. Because they've given up hope. I would like to think that I'd personally be one of the people who keeps trying. But if I was getting constant rejection, I'm not sure how many YEARS I'd keep trying. Many of the long term unemployed have never recovered from the 2008 down turn, some have been unemployed longer than that. That's 5 years or more.
- rickhanlonii 13y ago
  >a job that is "below them" This is absolutely not why people are not getting of UI to take a minimum wage job. Right now, if they were to accept a minimum wage job, they would lose UI and get paid less for the job then they are getting from UI. It is financially advantageous to stay on UI in those cases. Without that incentive, they would take the low wage job, but they would have to get on welfare/food stamps which the rest of us have to pay for. So, tax payers are either paying for UI or subsidizing the difference between what those employees are paid and a living wage. The solution to this mess is simple: Make companies who are profiting billions share those profits and pay their employees a living wage. You do this by raising the minimum wage. With a higher minimum wage, it would become a financially sound decision to get off UI and work a minimum wage job, and taxpayers wouldn't have to pay the difference.
  - buckbova 13y ago
    "You do this by raising the minimum wage." I don't mind this, but I don't see it to be the solution. These multi-billion dollar corporations will find a way to cut out the labor using more automation in workflow or they will out-source this work. What I'd like to seee is tarrifs go up considerably. If you want to offshore your labor then we'll make up the difference at the dock when you offload your goods.
    - padobson 13y ago
      That automation costs money (read: labor) to develop. It also costs money (read: labor) to maintain. Either hire unskilled people at the higher minimum wage or hire skilled people to install and service your automated stuff. Either way, you're hiring people. On another note, if we're going to be a progressive society, we need to start being more progressive with the way regulate businesses with things like the minimum wage. Making McDonald's (1.8mm employees, $27.5 billion revenue) pay the same minimum wage as Fred's Burger cart (3 employees, $73k revenue) is ridiculous. Small businesses should be able to pay a lower minimum wage than bigger businesses, if we're going to be a progressive society. If we're not going to be a progressive society, then there's no reason to talk minimum wage in the first place.
      - buckbova 13y ago
        Many McDonalds locations are franchises, so they are actually individual businesses. They aren't paid by McDonalds but by the franchisee.
        padobson 13y ago
        I don't think this changes the point. A single McDonald's franchise would pay its employees a different minimum wage than McDonald's Corporate, and Fred's burger cart would still be paying a different minimum wage to his two employees than both. If you find there's some legal manipulation that could go on so larger companies could avoid paying the higher minimum wage, well, then that's no different than every other progressive law on the books.
- woodchuck64 13y ago
  I too, would think they would double down. But Matthew Yglesias seems to think that UI recipients have no interest in actually finding a job. Yet his article identifies the root problem as "long term unemployment" rather than "no interest in work".
- jellicle 13y ago
  > take a job You seem confused about the reality that there are no jobs. The equation for millions of people in the United States today is: apply for 1,000 jobs, get zero offers. So out of the zero jobs offered, which of the jobs that are below them should they take?
  - buckbova 13y ago
    http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm "The unemployment rate declined from 7.3 percent to 7.0 percent in November, and total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 203,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in transportation and warehousing, health care, and manufacturing." Must have been the last 203,000 jobs. Apparently according to you there are now 0 left.
    - Ensorceled 13y ago
      The unemployment rate did not drop to 0. It dropped to 7.0 percent. That means 10.9 million people in the US are still looking for work and can't find it. What is your point again?
avemg 13y ago
The obvious response to that is to suggest that these people are looking just hard enough (wink,wink) to keep their benefits but not actually get hired by anyone and once you take away the free ride they'll start making an honest effort to find work. I don't agree with that, but I find it hard to refute when it comes up. Are there any good, fact-based arguments that prove this idea to be false?
- Ensorceled 13y ago
  The fact that employment can add 200K jobs in a month. When jobs open up they are filled. There are around 11 million unemployed in the US. There are not 11 million employers looking for people that can't find anybody willing to work. If there was, everybody would have the UI benefits cut off for not taking those jobs.
aggieben 13y ago
Taking away the UI check is just as likely to incentivize people to look for jobs they can actually get, as opposed to constant, documented "looking" so they can continue to draw a check.
- prodigal_erik 13y ago
  McDonalds had a "national hiring day" a couple years ago and hired 62,000 people out of a million. That's some 900,000 people willing to flip burgers who were turned away. Where are the jobs they are avoiding which they could actually get?

lnanek2 13y ago

Yep, I've seen that quite a bit. For example, one guy walked into Barnes and Noble, asked for a job application, they said they weren't hiring, he said it's OK, he just needs it to get his UI check.

nickff 13y ago
Yet another instance where the government encourages activity, not productive activity.

loudmax 13y ago

The point of them registering as unemployed was the UI check. Many of them had already given up looking.