Is Unemployment Programs Making it Hard for me to Hire?

[Shock]

Do you know where the majority of profits go?

Do you know who owns these corporations?

Punishing the wealthy is not a solution to economic problems. The majority of millionaires are first generation rich, drive used cars, live in reasonable neighborhoods and would be unrecognizable to you. Being wise with your finances should have it's rewards. Living within your means is the first step to wealth. Unfortunately it's not a step most people in our nation are willing to take including Congress.

Taking away money from people with the good sense to manage it and giving it to a government that has proved itself inept in every way is not progress.

The majority of the profits of my company goes into building up other, more profitable, areas of it. So in essence the better I do at my job the more likely I won't have one in a decade.

Adam, when I mention real work I am in no way describing manual labour. I simply implied meaningful and productive work. If someone is a software designer I'm not saying they're not doing real work. However, their boss who only cares about squeezing every drop of humanity out of them to make slightly more profit, is in my opinion, the problem with todays society. In reality it's probably not even his fault, he's probably got a boss who's doing the same thing to him.


You're not taking money away from people who have a good sense in making it. The reality is job performance has such a small impact on promotions in todays work force it's pathetic. It's no longer about what you do or how you do it. But all about who you know and how willing you are to put on some knee pads.

I've worked all sorts of jobs, from construction, to retail, to warehouse, and now I sit in my own office and it even has a lovely view of Jones lake. At every single one of my jobs I've worked I've always been the stand out employee. I'm not lazy, I always do my job well, and I always want to be the best. I've never settled for just going to my job to make a pay check, those people are the ones that were always my bosses. Has this attitude or work ethic offered me ANY advantage over some jackass who comes into work drunk but is so far up managements *** he can see what they had for lunch? Nope.

How often have any one of you wondered not only how your boss got their job, but how they were able to keep it for such a long time?


Your basing your government statement on one which could have gone to the moon in the 60's but is now not able to. A country that now imports the majority of it's innovation from other countries. A country that used to be a beacon of hope to the planet, and is now really looked down on in other first and second world countries.

As I'm sure you all can tell, I'm bitter when it comes to this topic. I in no way meant to derail the thread, nor offer any contempt towards the OP. This is simply a topic I feel strongly about. There simply isn't enough well paying entry level jobs in this country. When I was in highschool I would hear, "Go to University, you'll get a good job." It's such a load of garbage it's almost laughable.

It should have been, "Go to University, you'll accumulate $40,000 in debt which you will be paying off for the next 40 years. You won't get a job worth anything for the 10 years following that, and the only thing you can do with that science degree is take more school or teach. I hope you like living with your parents."

I think it's time for a drink.

 

[Adam]

I think it's time for a drink.

If you'd thought of that eight hours ago, you might just be management material.


Sorry, man...I just couldn't resist.

 

[adwilk]

Shock, you're entitled to your opinion but there is another side to that coin that could easily be blamed for various issues in our economic society.

I don't know how old you are, but my generation somehow thinks that society or this life owes them something. "I went to school- I deserve a great job" Thats ridiculous.

When these corporate monsters build large corporations they earn the right to make decisions that affect wages, benefits, promotions etc. Everybody has the same opportunity to work hard for what they want. The general entitlement mentality is the problem.

 

[Adam]

Shock, you're entitled to your opinion but...The general entitlement mentality is the problem.

Man, that's just not nice.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Shock, you're entitled to your opinion but there is another side to that coin that could easily be blamed for various issues in our economic society.

I don't know how old you are, but my generation somehow thinks that society or this life owes them something. "I went to school- I deserve a great job" Thats ridiculous.

When I joined the RCN in 1982, the old hands would say that my generation was soft, spoiled, undisciplined, etc. 30 years later, we say the same thing about the young people joing the navy. It's human nature to think that way. The generations certainly are different, without question. Are they as different as we think? It's debatable.

I think part of the problem is that young people have been told, "get a univerisity education - you'll get a good job and won't have to get your hands dirty like your parents." When that didn't come to pass for a significant number of young people, they felt betrayed and I can understand it. When I was younger, a degree was actually worth something. But, when so many kids have been told to go to university to get ahead, it just led to "credential inflation". Now, the B.A. is the new high school diploma. It is completely unecessary for so many people to get a university education, while the skilled trades are left begging.

When these corporate monsters build large corporations they earn the right to make decisions that affect wages, benefits, promotions etc. Everybody has the same opportunity to work hard for what they want. The general entitlement mentality is the problem.

Doesn't mean they make the right decisions though, does it? I've been reading a book called "Willful Blindness". The bone-headed things that many corporations do that they think saves/earns them money would be laughable if it wasn't so often tragic.

Head office will issue directives to cut costs. They don't care how you do it - they'd rather not know, so that they can avoid responsibility. So, when you can't find workers to fill positions because of the low wages on offer, or accidents happen because safety was compromised in order to save money, "head office" says it's not their fault. I beg to differ...

There certainly are two sides to the coin, I'll grant you that. None of us should have a sense of entitlement, but that applies to both sides. Just because a company is huge, it doesn't mean they made smart decisions. They have the right to make them, as you say, but they often do things that aren't in their own interests. The average oil company these days could have Bozo the clown as CEO and still make tons of money.

 

[adwilk]

I'm sure all that makes perfect sense in Canada.


I do agree with you, though. Certainly there are merits to both sides...

 

[Rickster71]

I do agree with you, though. Certainly there are merits to both sides...

That's very true...I don't think either side knows that much about each others side of the story.
Big companies don't know what the endless rat race its like for the average worker.
OTOH the average Joe doesn't realize the true amount of money it takes to sustain a business, or the bureaucratic mess dealing with our bloated government is really like.
Does the employee know what it take to make a payroll every week, or the amount a company pays out in benefits and taxes?
I won't even mention the endless cost of permits, local taxes, state taxes, or contributions to unemployment insurance.
OK I'm done.

 

[adwilk]

Thanks for not mentioning any of that other stuff

 

[Rickster71]

Thanks for not mentioning any of that other stuff

See what I did there.
I didn't mention it, out loud.
It was either type it... or express it with interpretive dance.
Those Jazz / Tap classes really paid off BTW.

 

[MidnightSensi2]

Wow, you guys have turned this into a great discussion.

I think the main problem is you pretty much can't live a productive life for 24,000 dollars a year.

I wouldn't want to live in a dump and go to a manual labour job 40 hours a week only to scrape by every month with nothing to show for it. When you don't have to do anything for the same situation you don't feel so bad

Here you can, believe it or not. We have an arts district, lots of small apartments and little areas that are pleasant to live in.

As for $12.50/hr? Well, many businesses couldn't afford to pay more than that. It also has a snowball effect. If they were to pay more for entry level work, there would be pressure to pay more to the higher skilled and more experienced workers.

Should the government force people to accept work, or lose their benefits? Maybe. Such a policy might also put downward pressure on wages. If businesses know that people will be forced to accept jobs or have their benefits cut, there would be an incentive to cut wages. It's certainly not a black and white situation.

Good points. The snowball effect is very real. Everyone knows what everyone makes eventually, and also people forget that if your paying someone 12.50 by the time you add health care and other benefits its more.

I'm not sure about the downward pressure, it's pretty much businesses paying what they can pay around here. The problem is that a lot of businesses are finding it's cheaper and less headache to run overtime than hire more people. Not good for unemployment.

It's a ****ing travesty that the rich now pay less tax than ever and the poor aren't allowed to live like people.

Income taxes for high earners aren't nearly high enough in North America and it's a huge reason why we're in such dire straights. The top tier tax bracket in the 50's was over 90%.....and when the economy dropped into the toilet in 2008, 35%. The beginning of the great depression....25%....Looks like we're almost there again.

Really though, the rich dudes make the jobs. You want them rich. My friend is a professor in Saudi Arabia now, American dude, he's making an order of magnitude greater than he'd make here. He hates living there, but he'll collect and then come back. They're rich, he's employed, and making a lot of money.

Gotta be careful at pointing the finger at the rich, most aren't flashy, and if the trend becomes not to spend, we'll...that's not good for the downtrodden.

A lot of what we saw with high end products in the recession was it just wasn't 'trendy' to spend. Now it's kind of blowing over (people are getting sick of not spending). You don't want that to return.

 

[adwilk]

Wow, you guys have turned this into a great discussion.

Crazy, huh? You wouldn't expect that in a thread that myself, Rick and Adam have posted in more than once... Just sayin...

 

[Rickster71]

Wow, you guys have turned this into a great discussion.

Have absolutely no idea how that happened...

 

[psbfan9]

Are you targeting women only for this position? I may not have perky breasts and a sunny disposition, but I can answer phones and surf the internet during lull times like a champ.

 

[Adam]

Are you targeting women only for this position?

There's a question that never gets asked at AH Twister...

 

[psbfan9]

I hope your rental properties are generating enough to get by. Funny that you mention Tim Horton's. A buddy of mine has two daughters who have worked there and although they made minimum wage, the tips pretty much doubled their earnings. If you're in that kinda job, it certainly beats the burger joints!

Thanks, I appreciate that!

I thought of Tim Hortons because I applied at a Starbucks last week. They offer insurance for both full time and part time employees.

 

[Shock]

Way too much discussion going on in this thread, it's going to take forever to reply to this!

 

[adwilk]

Just FYI- extended legislation allows an unemployed worker filing this week in the state of Missouri and most other states to receive benefits for up to 77 weeks- regardless of balances available based on what is paid in. Most states require no work search certification for weekly claims. Any work done in that time would start that cycle over again based on the criteria now.

You can't tell me something isn't wrong with that. No wonder the unemployment rate is so high.

 

[Alex2507]

You can't tell me something isn't wrong with that.

Sure I can. What's wrong with that is there is so little work out there that the extensions have become necessary for a lot of people not to lose their homes be it owned or rented. Certain industries have been hit harder than others in this peek into the future apocalypse. You make it sound like living on unemployment is a field day. You should try it. It's not a party with an open bar, ya know.

For me personally last year was alright in that I made it a full year without going on unemployment. Not that I wasn't out of work but I was able to hopscotch from one project to another without too much lag time. Take a look around you. Stop texting long enough as you speed negligently and look at all the closed businesses ... it all means something.

Put an ad in CL offering to pay somebody $10 for day labor and see how many calls come in ... especially down south. I can't even imagine what it's like down there. Up here in the hand basket of left wing liberalism it's spooky with all the empty retail spaces and closed car lots.

I can't imagine what Sensi's circumstances are that a position paying that with I presume some kind of medical insurance hasn't drawn 100 applications or yielded dozens of resumes. Sh!t, he could hire psbfan who's ready to relocate and there's no worry that he's gonna get pregnant. That means something and it's not that being unemployed is a walk in the park. I mean think about it, unemployment is less money than work.

 

[3db]

I've been layed off three times in my life and I was very lucky to gain employment before the benefits ran out where I would have to draw from UI. Its not a comfortable feeling at all and really gives one's self worth a **** kicking.

I just want to throw in another argument ( I skipped a lot of posts to get me here so if I'm repeating someone else's argument I apologize) in that may based on a persons location, marital status with kids etc, it may be more economically viable to keep drawing UI then it is to take a job where the salary paid just isn't going to make ends meet. Its been my experience that life is very seldom black and white (except for birth, death and taxes) and one has to look at each case individually instead of throwing them all in one basket and stream lining for the sake of efficiency. Doing that and you will lose humanity in us.

 

[Adam]

You guys are starting to get me interested enough to look more into the numbers - but I'm not quite there. There were 3.5 million job openings in the U.S. at the end of January. I checked, and there are over 1000 listed at one online job site here in Tucson. I'm not sure what that all means, but it does tell me that there are jobs out there - a lot of them. Why they aren't being filled is what I don't know. I'm sure lack of qualifications is part of it.

I look at the unemployment benefits here in Arizona this morning. I'll say upfront that I'm not sure if the reference pay amount is for four months or for a year, but either way, my impression at the moment is that it's the people who actually pay taxes that get screwed by unemployment insurance. Even if the reference pay is for four months, benefits max out once your annual income gets near $24k.