3 ms·

I've seen first hand that this is true. My former room mate / business partner (see: iStoleYourStartup) was laid off of his iPhone game dev job and started col

by alttab 17y ago

I've seen first hand that this is true. My former room mate / business partner (see: iStoleYourStartup) was laid off of his iPhone game dev job and started collecting unemployment (while illegally trying to bootstrap iZenStudent). They extended his unemployment benefits, so he continued to not look for a job and continued not tell the Texas Workforce Commission that he was trying to run his own business. I had half a mind to turn him in because my tax dollars was funding his "start up."

marcusbooster 17y ago
As a counterpoint, my old man builds stores and new construction has dried up and not come back. In the meantime he's had to completely retool by getting certified for inspection work for the state. This takes time and these classes are crowded. The economy is changing and there seems to be a big disconnect between the people reading this board and the large majority of our population.
gojomo 17y ago
I'm glad you didn't act on your resentments. It's healthier to move on. I've got mixed feelings about the legitimacy of someone collecting unemployment while attempting a bootstrap. For the startup-minded, trying to get a project to self-sufficiency is in a way "searching for a job". I'm not sure either they or the public treasury would be better served by them aggressively seeking a W-2 job, even though that may be the ostensible requirement of the unemployment compensation program. (Unless the abuse is really blatant -- drawing a consistent documented salary-like payment -- I also doubt most state bureaucracies would or could do anything to cut off payments.)
- alttab 17y ago
  I can only speculate why my initial comment here was voted up - then down. The issue here wasn't that he was collecting unemployment while bootstrapping -- its that he simply didn't tell the Texas Workforce Commission. If you have a start up, and you tell the unemployment office, they may still give you the full compensation (although I wonder if we would have received the maximum allowed benefit). When you sign up for unemployment they ask you if you are current self-employed. He had his name on a DBA, had a fully functioning website up describing his business - and withheld this information from TWC. This is illegal.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    Don't sweat the random walk of comment scores. Good comments sometimes wind up negative based on the arbitrary tastes of the last few voters. Even if attempting "self-employment", if there's no money coming in, it's arguable as to whether it should be called that for the purposes of some government form. Trying earnestly to launch a new corporation isn't precisely "self-employment", either. If it succeeds, you get some mixture of capital gains, dividends, and W-2 income -- none of which may ever be classified for tax purposes as "self-employment income". Scrappy bootstrapping doesn't map neatly into the fixed labels and "hours worked", "wages earned" boxes of a state bureaucracy. Unless I was an employment lawyer, a judge, or a TWC functionary, I wouldn't confidently pronounce someone else's self-reported status as "illegal". (I know I felt differently in my 20s. I'm more tolerant of different routes to self-sufficiency, now, as long as they're in the right spirit.)

by alttab 17y ago

marcusbooster 17y ago

As a counterpoint, my old man builds stores and new construction has dried up and not come back. In the meantime he's had to completely retool by getting certified for inspection work for the state. This takes time and these classes are crowded. The economy is changing and there seems to be a big disconnect between the people reading this board and the large majority of our population.

gojomo 17y ago

I'm glad you didn't act on your resentments. It's healthier to move on. I've got mixed feelings about the legitimacy of someone collecting unemployment while attempting a bootstrap. For the startup-minded, trying to get a project to self-sufficiency is in a way "searching for a job". I'm not sure either they or the public treasury would be better served by them aggressively seeking a W-2 job, even though that may be the ostensible requirement of the unemployment compensation program. (Unless the abuse is really blatant -- drawing a consistent documented salary-like payment -- I also doubt most state bureaucracies would or could do anything to cut off payments.)

alttab 17y ago
I can only speculate why my initial comment here was voted up - then down. The issue here wasn't that he was collecting unemployment while bootstrapping -- its that he simply didn't tell the Texas Workforce Commission. If you have a start up, and you tell the unemployment office, they may still give you the full compensation (although I wonder if we would have received the maximum allowed benefit). When you sign up for unemployment they ask you if you are current self-employed. He had his name on a DBA, had a fully functioning website up describing his business - and withheld this information from TWC. This is illegal.
- gojomo 17y ago
  Don't sweat the random walk of comment scores. Good comments sometimes wind up negative based on the arbitrary tastes of the last few voters. Even if attempting "self-employment", if there's no money coming in, it's arguable as to whether it should be called that for the purposes of some government form. Trying earnestly to launch a new corporation isn't precisely "self-employment", either. If it succeeds, you get some mixture of capital gains, dividends, and W-2 income -- none of which may ever be classified for tax purposes as "self-employment income". Scrappy bootstrapping doesn't map neatly into the fixed labels and "hours worked", "wages earned" boxes of a state bureaucracy. Unless I was an employment lawyer, a judge, or a TWC functionary, I wouldn't confidently pronounce someone else's self-reported status as "illegal". (I know I felt differently in my 20s. I'm more tolerant of different routes to self-sufficiency, now, as long as they're in the right spirit.)