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For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite:
12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings.
Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2)
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On December 10 2013 00:43 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I actually don't think paid support is what people in desperate situations generally need the most. I think what they need the most is for society around them to not blame them for their own desperate situation. And once that happens, a greater set of unified, empowering policies which would alter education and revolutionize the penal system could be set in motion to possibly in the future make real, large scale social mobility a possibility.
I'm not holding my breath though. But the notion that poverty and desperation is a personal choice is so distant from my own perspective, and so fundamentally illogical, that I don't even see the point in addressing the point of view that poverty and desperation can sometimes also be empowering tools for the exceptionally gifted.
No one directly chooses to be impoverished. However, people do make other poor choices that inevitably lead to impoverishment. It doesn't have to be one choice, either. Lots of poor small choices can have disastrous cumulative effects. Even something as small as slacking off at work or showing up late too often.
And frankly, I think you have it backwards. The problem is that people aren't judged enough for their poor decisions. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one big one is the general weakening of local communal relationships. Hell, if you really want to help people, it needs to be handled at a local level anyway where people on the ground with actual knowledge of the problem can properly address it. A bureaucrat in Washington throwing money all over the place isn't going to fix anything. In fact, people generally are going to resent their tax money being sent to bums they don't know in communities that are across the country.
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On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: Show nested quote +12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2)
Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state.
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On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state.
Yeah, that's the case in most states.
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On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:
For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job[...]
Well five minutes on Wikipedia should show every person that there's no positive correlation between how much government is spending on the unemployed and the unemployment rate itself. In fact the so called "welfare states" are doing really well when it comes to unemployment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate
Following some peoples logic all people in Scandinavia would just be hanging around living on state welfare programs.
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On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state.
On December 10 2013 01:59 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Yeah, that's the case in most states.
So you both agree that the idea of dropping unemployment benefits in order to "motivate" people to find a job is a silly one?
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On December 09 2013 19:57 jellyjello wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2013 18:03 aksfjh wrote:On December 09 2013 16:12 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:On December 09 2013 07:34 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You are missing the point. We are only talking about replacing $300 per week in unemployment benefits. Getting a job that does that is pretty easy.
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. If you are an aging senior without any sort of retirement plan, then whose problem is it really? Funny that most senior people I know have two or three retirement checks coming monthly, and some even have 401K on top of it. You reap what you sow. Also, it shouldn't take two years for a recent college grad to land a position where he can gain experience. After all, everyone had to start from somewhere. You have a college degree but can't find a job for two years? Give me a break. It's funny that most seniors I know are dead. It's funny that most college grads I know graduated near the top of their class with engineering degrees and had no problems finding jobs. It's funny that most the people I know have never known hunger. It's funny how anecdotal evidence is just short hand for "I think everybody is lying and my uneducated opinion is the TRUTH!" The job market is hard right now for long term unemployed and new entries to the work force. That's shown in statistics, as is with the state of 401k's in the nation. If you would like to counter those statistics with your own, by all means, find us the data. You really need to get out and see how folks in some of the developing countries have to do to get by on daily basis. Can't find a job because the job market is hard? Give me a freaking break. I just had a friend who got laid off - was given three months of notice, who couldn't find a suitable replacement job because the entire time he did not invest in himself. But even someone like him can find a job, although it may not be what he wants, but it's a job. He was actually offered a job of his profession in other locations, but Instead he's decided to stay put and just live off the unemployment for next two years while trying to better his resume. Can't blame him - why move to the other side of country with a pay cut when he can stay and collect unemployment? Somewhere along the way the Americans became so spoiled that they must have a house, a car, fridge full of food, can't work weekends or more than 40 hours a week. Completely ridiculous. I've seen a 70 year of grandpa work two jobs so that he can buy enough food for the night's dinner while living in one room basement, after his entire saving was thrown out for a cancer treatment (what a great socialized healthcare system this S.Korea has, huh). I've seen a 14 year old kid who work three part time jobs so she can provide food to her younger brothers and keep them in school. Those are the ones who need the help, not some recent college grad with no social skills or aging grandpa who's life was all about spending the paycheck as they come. But sure, keep on extending the unemployment benefits because, you know, after all the job market is hard and lots of people "can't find a job". If all fails, we can always tax the hell out of the rich folks, right?
On December 09 2013 22:06 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2013 20:19 KwarK wrote:
It's odd to me that you aspire for the richest country in the world to be forcing 14 year old kids to work three part time jobs to feed their younger brothers and 70 year olds to work two just to feed themselves. Surely there must be some better way. To be fair, the resulting tenacity that comes from such desperation is a big part of the reason that Koreans dominate StarCraft. It's not that different from hearing stories of everyone from boxers to Barack Obama about the desperation of their youths and how it gave them the strength of character to push through any adversity.
When a society/economy/person grows rich enough, you expect certain hardships to diminish or cease to exist. Can you imagine being a millionaire, but once a week you just can't find any food? You can throw all sorts of justification that the one day of starvation makes you stronger by reminding you that worse things exist, but in reality, when you actually look at the problems that one day of hunger causes, you see that it hurts your performance overall. The same thing happens at scale.
Specifically on coverpunch's point, the costs outweigh the benefits. You get these awesome stories of people with drives that overcome adversity to do amazing things, but you also have people that have little to no adversity do similarly. The "rage that helps them succeed" doesn't actually make them better, just raises them to the level of the elite. Those rags to riches stories make for good entertainment, but are hardly something we should strive to create more of. In fact, I'm not even sure it's a sincere argument, because you're not asking we punish affluent kids without resolve by stripping them of their connections and money to motivate them to do more with their resources.
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On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state.
Having been on UI for 9 weeks and having a cousin who spent over a year on it I can assure you all it takes to "prove" a job search is to put down a few random businesses and their phone number. My cousin didn't do a damn job search until his benefits ran dry, my state definitely doesn't check up with everyone or possibly anyone. With the move to internet applications I imagine it is pretty difficult to check people.
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On December 10 2013 02:10 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:59 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Yeah, that's the case in most states. So you both agree that the idea of dropping unemployment benefits in order to "motivate" people to find a job is a silly one?
No, it's really easy to game the system if one is so inclined.
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On December 10 2013 02:11 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2013 19:57 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 18:03 aksfjh wrote:On December 09 2013 16:12 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. If you are an aging senior without any sort of retirement plan, then whose problem is it really? Funny that most senior people I know have two or three retirement checks coming monthly, and some even have 401K on top of it. You reap what you sow. Also, it shouldn't take two years for a recent college grad to land a position where he can gain experience. After all, everyone had to start from somewhere. You have a college degree but can't find a job for two years? Give me a break. It's funny that most seniors I know are dead. It's funny that most college grads I know graduated near the top of their class with engineering degrees and had no problems finding jobs. It's funny that most the people I know have never known hunger. It's funny how anecdotal evidence is just short hand for "I think everybody is lying and my uneducated opinion is the TRUTH!" The job market is hard right now for long term unemployed and new entries to the work force. That's shown in statistics, as is with the state of 401k's in the nation. If you would like to counter those statistics with your own, by all means, find us the data. You really need to get out and see how folks in some of the developing countries have to do to get by on daily basis. Can't find a job because the job market is hard? Give me a freaking break. I just had a friend who got laid off - was given three months of notice, who couldn't find a suitable replacement job because the entire time he did not invest in himself. But even someone like him can find a job, although it may not be what he wants, but it's a job. He was actually offered a job of his profession in other locations, but Instead he's decided to stay put and just live off the unemployment for next two years while trying to better his resume. Can't blame him - why move to the other side of country with a pay cut when he can stay and collect unemployment? Somewhere along the way the Americans became so spoiled that they must have a house, a car, fridge full of food, can't work weekends or more than 40 hours a week. Completely ridiculous. I've seen a 70 year of grandpa work two jobs so that he can buy enough food for the night's dinner while living in one room basement, after his entire saving was thrown out for a cancer treatment (what a great socialized healthcare system this S.Korea has, huh). I've seen a 14 year old kid who work three part time jobs so she can provide food to her younger brothers and keep them in school. Those are the ones who need the help, not some recent college grad with no social skills or aging grandpa who's life was all about spending the paycheck as they come. But sure, keep on extending the unemployment benefits because, you know, after all the job market is hard and lots of people "can't find a job". If all fails, we can always tax the hell out of the rich folks, right? Show nested quote +On December 09 2013 22:06 coverpunch wrote:On December 09 2013 20:19 KwarK wrote:
It's odd to me that you aspire for the richest country in the world to be forcing 14 year old kids to work three part time jobs to feed their younger brothers and 70 year olds to work two just to feed themselves. Surely there must be some better way. To be fair, the resulting tenacity that comes from such desperation is a big part of the reason that Koreans dominate StarCraft. It's not that different from hearing stories of everyone from boxers to Barack Obama about the desperation of their youths and how it gave them the strength of character to push through any adversity. When a society/economy/person grows rich enough, you expect certain hardships to diminish or cease to exist. Can you imagine being a millionaire, but once a week you just can't find any food? You can throw all sorts of justification that the one day of starvation makes you stronger by reminding you that worse things exist, but in reality, when you actually look at the problems that one day of hunger causes, you see that it hurts your performance overall. The same thing happens at scale. Specifically on coverpunch's point, the costs outweigh the benefits. You get these awesome stories of people with drives that overcome adversity to do amazing things, but you also have people that have little to no adversity do similarly. The "rage that helps them succeed" doesn't actually make them better, just raises them to the level of the elite. Those rags to riches stories make for good entertainment, but are hardly something we should strive to create more of. In fact, I'm not even sure it's a sincere argument, because you're not asking we punish affluent kids without resolve by stripping them of their connections and money to motivate them to do more with their resources.
but anecdotes give you all these warm fuzzy feelings, so much better than statistics about how welfare makes x% of people more likely to find a job within y period of time!
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On December 10 2013 02:10 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:59 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Yeah, that's the case in most states. So you both agree that the idea of dropping unemployment benefits in order to "motivate" people to find a job is a silly one?
Depends what you mean by "find a job" - job search or job search plus acceptance? UI benefits require you to search for a job, but you can work around that by applying to jobs you don't really want while waiting for your dream job to show up. To what extent it is a big deal isn't really known. Some researchers think it's a big deal, others don't.
We exploit a policy discontinuity at U.S. state borders to identify the effects of unemployment insurance policies on unemployment. Our estimates imply that most of the persistent increase in unemployment during the Great Recession can be accounted for by the unprecedented extensions of unemployment benefit eligibility. In contrast to the existing recent literature that mainly focused on estimating the effects of benefit duration on job search and acceptance strategies of the unemployed -- the micro effect -- we focus on measuring the general equilibrium macro effect that operates primarily through the response of job creation to unemployment benefit extensions. We find that it is the latter effect that is very important quantitatively. Link
Others disagree, so it's kind of an unknown. You really just have to assume a trade-off and roll with your personal preferences on this one as far as I can tell. If you favor stronger job creation, worry that UI benefits to too generous. If you favor protecting the unemployed, worry that UI benefits are too stingy.
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On December 10 2013 02:13 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 02:10 kwizach wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. On December 10 2013 01:59 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Yeah, that's the case in most states. So you both agree that the idea of dropping unemployment benefits in order to "motivate" people to find a job is a silly one? No, it's really easy to game the system if one is so inclined.
...but the study I just provided you with shows that people who are on the system are "more proactive in seeking work".
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I'm not a conservative or a condemning person but as a web developer/designer I get a real kick out of the amount of problems the healthcare.gov website had when it launched. Why can't you hire some more affluent people to do the work instead of giving some coporate eggheads one of the most important websites in the world? On top of it all, it was so easy to SQL inject that it almost resulted in millions getting their most private information leaked online!
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On December 10 2013 02:33 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 02:13 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 02:10 kwizach wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. On December 10 2013 01:59 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Yeah, that's the case in most states. So you both agree that the idea of dropping unemployment benefits in order to "motivate" people to find a job is a silly one? No, it's really easy to game the system if one is so inclined. ...but the study I just provided you with shows that people who are on the system are "more proactive in seeking work".
That study is inapposite to my point, which is that rather than sitting on UI benefits for extended periods of time looking for the "right" job, people should go work elsewhere -- even if its a menial job -- until a better opportunity arises. In other words, people shouldn't need more than 6 months of UI benefits. By the time that those benefits run out, they should already have plan B in place to take care of themselves.
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On December 10 2013 01:46 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 00:43 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I actually don't think paid support is what people in desperate situations generally need the most. I think what they need the most is for society around them to not blame them for their own desperate situation. And once that happens, a greater set of unified, empowering policies which would alter education and revolutionize the penal system could be set in motion to possibly in the future make real, large scale social mobility a possibility.
I'm not holding my breath though. But the notion that poverty and desperation is a personal choice is so distant from my own perspective, and so fundamentally illogical, that I don't even see the point in addressing the point of view that poverty and desperation can sometimes also be empowering tools for the exceptionally gifted. No one directly chooses to be impoverished. However, people do make other poor choices that inevitably lead to impoverishment. It doesn't have to be one choice, either. Lots of poor small choices can have disastrous cumulative effects. Even something as small as slacking off at work or showing up late too often. And frankly, I think you have it backwards. The problem is that people aren't judged enough for their poor decisions. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one big one is the general weakening of local communal relationships. Hell, if you really want to help people, it needs to be handled at a local level anyway where people on the ground with actual knowledge of the problem can properly address it. A bureaucrat in Washington throwing money all over the place isn't going to fix anything. In fact, people generally are going to resent their tax money being sent to bums they don't know in communities that are across the country.
And sometimes people are poor even though they did not make any poor choices.
As for the often used local level argument. There are plenty arguments for better involvement on local level. But there are good reasons why some things should be kept out of hands of locals. If there is benefit to extensive bureaucracy is its statistical "impartiality". The bureaucrat in Washington does not care about a person on the other side of the country and that is a good thing. Bureaucrats should be as neutral as possible to implement policies fairly and locals are often anything but neutral. There is probably some way to balance it (not perfectly), but claiming like one way is the panacea to everything is flawed. Especially without showing how exactly should the local involvement be increased and how exactly will it help.
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On December 10 2013 02:57 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 01:46 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 00:43 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I actually don't think paid support is what people in desperate situations generally need the most. I think what they need the most is for society around them to not blame them for their own desperate situation. And once that happens, a greater set of unified, empowering policies which would alter education and revolutionize the penal system could be set in motion to possibly in the future make real, large scale social mobility a possibility.
I'm not holding my breath though. But the notion that poverty and desperation is a personal choice is so distant from my own perspective, and so fundamentally illogical, that I don't even see the point in addressing the point of view that poverty and desperation can sometimes also be empowering tools for the exceptionally gifted. No one directly chooses to be impoverished. However, people do make other poor choices that inevitably lead to impoverishment. It doesn't have to be one choice, either. Lots of poor small choices can have disastrous cumulative effects. Even something as small as slacking off at work or showing up late too often. And frankly, I think you have it backwards. The problem is that people aren't judged enough for their poor decisions. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one big one is the general weakening of local communal relationships. Hell, if you really want to help people, it needs to be handled at a local level anyway where people on the ground with actual knowledge of the problem can properly address it. A bureaucrat in Washington throwing money all over the place isn't going to fix anything. In fact, people generally are going to resent their tax money being sent to bums they don't know in communities that are across the country. And sometimes people are poor even though they did not make any poor choices. As for the often used local level argument. There are plenty arguments for better involvement on local level. But there are good reasons why some things should be kept out of hands of locals. If there is benefit to extensive bureaucracy is its statistical "impartiality". The bureaucrat in Washington does not care about a person on the other side of the country and that is a good thing. Bureaucrats should be as neutral as possible to implement policies fairly and locals are often anything but neutral. There is probably some way to balance it (not perfectly), but claiming like one way is the panacea to everything is flawed. Especially without showing how exactly should the local involvement be increased and how exactly will it help.
Shit happens. But barring some unpreventable calamity, people who work hard in school, avoid drugs and criminal behavior, and then work hard for their employers will do just fine in life. The problem is that too many people stray from that path. The root cause of this problem is a break down in families and local communities -- largely, though not always, along certain racial and ethnic lines.
As for the statistical impartiality of the bureaucrat in Washington, you're basically whitewashing the fact that the bureaucrat in Washington is just blindly throwing money around. That's not a perk of an effective system.
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On December 10 2013 02:43 epok wrote:
I'm not a conservative or a condemning person but as a web developer/designer I get a real kick out of the amount of problems the healthcare.gov website had when it launched. Why can't you hire some more affluent people to do the work instead of giving some coporate eggheads one of the most important websites in the world? On top of it all, it was so easy to SQL inject that it almost resulted in millions getting their most private information leaked online!
what baffles me is that they even hired a company which had a lousy track record with these sorts of things.
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On December 10 2013 02:47 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 02:33 kwizach wrote:On December 10 2013 02:13 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 02:10 kwizach wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. On December 10 2013 01:59 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Yeah, that's the case in most states. So you both agree that the idea of dropping unemployment benefits in order to "motivate" people to find a job is a silly one? No, it's really easy to game the system if one is so inclined. ...but the study I just provided you with shows that people who are on the system are "more proactive in seeking work". That study is inapposite to my point, which is that rather than sitting on UI benefits for extended periods of time looking for the "right" job, people should go work elsewhere -- even if its a menial job -- until a better opportunity arises. In other words, people shouldn't need more than 6 months of UI benefits. By the time that those benefits run out, they should already have plan B in place to take care of themselves.
Considering studies have shown that there are at least three unemployed people for every job opening, the idea that they should "simply" work elsewhere is not very convincing - not only would finding the work itself not be easy, getting a sufficient income would require devoting even more time to perhaps several low-paying jobs, thus severely impairing one's ability to simultaneously look for a job at least somewhat remotely at the level of that person's qualifications. I see the cost of continuing unemployment benefits as significantly lower in absolute term than the impact finding a higher-paying job will have on that person's life (and possibly on the rest of society). We are talking about a vulnerable population here - no need to cripple them further, especially when it does not even change positively their motivation towards seeking work.
On December 10 2013 03:08 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 02:57 mcc wrote:On December 10 2013 01:46 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 00:43 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I actually don't think paid support is what people in desperate situations generally need the most. I think what they need the most is for society around them to not blame them for their own desperate situation. And once that happens, a greater set of unified, empowering policies which would alter education and revolutionize the penal system could be set in motion to possibly in the future make real, large scale social mobility a possibility.
I'm not holding my breath though. But the notion that poverty and desperation is a personal choice is so distant from my own perspective, and so fundamentally illogical, that I don't even see the point in addressing the point of view that poverty and desperation can sometimes also be empowering tools for the exceptionally gifted. No one directly chooses to be impoverished. However, people do make other poor choices that inevitably lead to impoverishment. It doesn't have to be one choice, either. Lots of poor small choices can have disastrous cumulative effects. Even something as small as slacking off at work or showing up late too often. And frankly, I think you have it backwards. The problem is that people aren't judged enough for their poor decisions. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one big one is the general weakening of local communal relationships. Hell, if you really want to help people, it needs to be handled at a local level anyway where people on the ground with actual knowledge of the problem can properly address it. A bureaucrat in Washington throwing money all over the place isn't going to fix anything. In fact, people generally are going to resent their tax money being sent to bums they don't know in communities that are across the country. And sometimes people are poor even though they did not make any poor choices. As for the often used local level argument. There are plenty arguments for better involvement on local level. But there are good reasons why some things should be kept out of hands of locals. If there is benefit to extensive bureaucracy is its statistical "impartiality". The bureaucrat in Washington does not care about a person on the other side of the country and that is a good thing. Bureaucrats should be as neutral as possible to implement policies fairly and locals are often anything but neutral. There is probably some way to balance it (not perfectly), but claiming like one way is the panacea to everything is flawed. Especially without showing how exactly should the local involvement be increased and how exactly will it help. Shit happens. But barring some unpreventable calamity, people who work hard in school, avoid drugs and criminal behavior, and then work hard for their employers will do just fine in life.
(citation needed)
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On December 10 2013 03:13 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 02:43 epok wrote:
I'm not a conservative or a condemning person but as a web developer/designer I get a real kick out of the amount of problems the healthcare.gov website had when it launched. Why can't you hire some more affluent people to do the work instead of giving some coporate eggheads one of the most important websites in the world? On top of it all, it was so easy to SQL inject that it almost resulted in millions getting their most private information leaked online! what baffles me is that they even hired a company which had a lousy track record with these sorts of things.
But the developer was Michelle Obama's classmate/friend! Surely they hired his company because it was the best rather than for corrupt reasons.
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On December 10 2013 02:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2013 02:10 kwizach wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. On December 10 2013 01:59 xDaunt wrote:On December 10 2013 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 10 2013 01:26 kwizach wrote:For those claiming that receiving unemployment benefits leads people to get lazy about finding a new job, here's a study showing the exact opposite: 12. Unemployed workers who received benefits were more likely to have been proactive in seeking work than those who did not receive UI. UI recipients reported more hours devoted to the job search and more frequently contact friends and examine job postings. Source (excerpt of the key findings on p. 2) Pretty sure if you are on UI you have to be engaged in a job search or you'll be dropped. It might vary by state. Yeah, that's the case in most states. So you both agree that the idea of dropping unemployment benefits in order to "motivate" people to find a job is a silly one? Depends what you mean by "find a job" - job search or job search plus acceptance? UI benefits require you to search for a job, but you can work around that by applying to jobs you don't really want while waiting for your dream job to show up. To what extent it is a big deal isn't really known. Some researchers think it's a big deal, others don't. Show nested quote +We exploit a policy discontinuity at U.S. state borders to identify the effects of unemployment insurance policies on unemployment. Our estimates imply that most of the persistent increase in unemployment during the Great Recession can be accounted for by the unprecedented extensions of unemployment benefit eligibility. In contrast to the existing recent literature that mainly focused on estimating the effects of benefit duration on job search and acceptance strategies of the unemployed -- the micro effect -- we focus on measuring the general equilibrium macro effect that operates primarily through the response of job creation to unemployment benefit extensions. We find that it is the latter effect that is very important quantitatively. LinkOthers disagree, so it's kind of an unknown. You really just have to assume a trade-off and roll with your personal preferences on this one as far as I can tell. If you favor stronger job creation, worry that UI benefits to too generous. If you favor protecting the unemployed, worry that UI benefits are too stingy.
There are some correlations using Denmark as a case study when they dropped unemployment benefits from 5 years to four. Most people will only start frantically looking for a job and accept a job once their benefits near an end. I haven't looked into it much myself, but the blog post has some links.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/why-denmark-is-shrinking-its-social-safety-net/
![[image loading]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/08/11/business/economy/economix-11denmark/economix-11denmark-custom1.jpg)
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EPT
