Have the Rules Changed?

 Have the rules changed?

I collected unemployment once.  Back in 1995.  

It was humiliating.  It was only a tiny fraction of my employed wages.  Even if you were to add $300 a week, it was quite pitiful.  

And you couldn't just sit and collect it.  You had to go to classes to teach you how to look for a job.  You had to report you were looking for jobs.  I don't think, without a very good reason, that you could turn down a job.

I was only on it for a few weeks.  Not because I found a real job, but because I went in with somebody on a bookstore.  I had a lot of comics and trading cards, and I added those to her existing bookstore.  I also did a card/comic show at a mall about twice a month.  These efforts netted me virtually nothing, a significant drop from the unemployment check.  Nevertheless, I so much did not want to be on unemployment that I willingly gave it up.

During the height of the pandemic, under Trump and a Republican Senate, unemployment was fattened up to $600 additional per week.  Why?  Well, there were a lot of places shut down or with business COVID restrictions, and that meant a lot of temporary closures.  And they did not want people to fall into poverty or for the American economy to completely collapse.

Even with that, many people went back to work at the first opportunity, even at the sacrifice of that supposed sweet $600 a week.  Because despite the overwhelming prejudice of many ultra-conservatives, most Americans WANT TO WORK.

Fast forward to the present.  People on unemployment are getting HALF the boost that they were, $300.  And yet, the howling has begun.  With that and the $1400 per person payment, people are just too flush and lazy to want to work.

Bullcrap,

Yes, with COVID on the downswing (not over by a longshot, but there is hope on the horizon), the US leading the world in vaccinations, and yes, people having a little cash in their pockets, the economy is coming back.  And businesses at the forefront of that recovery spending, like restaurants and retail establishments, find themselves in need of quickly staffing up.

If we had a true capitalist society, this would mean huge pressure to boost wages and improve working conditions.  There is no evidence that is happening, at least on any large scale. At least not yet.

People want to work.  There are some, like me, that are paranoid and take what we can get.  Others want to make wages that make sense in supporting themselves and their families, and are as safe as possible.

Somebody who has recently been on unemployment, please let me know.  Have the rules changed?  Don't you have to demonstrate that you're actively looking?  Don't you have to take reasonable job offers?

Stop blaming a temporary boost in unemployment compensation for all the troubles of the American economy.  Stop blaming the working poor for an economic system designed to exploit them and keep them impoverished.

Let's redesign the system so that the boat is bigger and the middle class is stronger.