Quote:
Originally Posted by Vampyr
Just to be clear I'm not against unemployment benefits at all, I am very much for it.
I was judging him based on the fact he is against "socialism" in general, when some aspects of socialism are obviously beneficial (as in socialized unemployment benefits). I was also judging him based on his friends responses, indicating that he isn't even trying to find a new job, and instead sits around drinking. He's abusing a system just because it's abusable, and claiming that he has the right too since they didn't make it non-abusable (which would be virtually impossible).
Systems like unemployment exist because people in bad situations deserve to be helped, and that help has to come from somewhere. People who immediately write it off as socialist and bad because it can be abused need to understand that sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. It can be abused, and it is, but I would still rather have it than not.
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I agree with you. When young I had to go on unemployment for about 6 months, but ended up getting hired back (and at a higher wage) by the same company. My dad owned a small construction company and his workers often would have to go on unemployment during colder winter months (the mortar would freeze). Unemployment insurance is very important, especially for those in trade professions.
Critiquing a system does not equal condemnation. I think people do need a bridge from one job to another, but our current unemployment system has serious flaws. Here are a two big ones:
1) 2 years is far too long. If you can't get a job in your chosen field for a year, its time to think about changing fields.
2) Currently, if you file as a small business in any way, you lose your benefits even if you show zero profit. This means if you become unemployed the government pays you to NOT be entrepreneurial. The benefits could be used to help fund a new, profitable business but instead are reserved for those who wait for another position and opportunity to work for someone else.
Fixing these two obvious flaws would go a long way to correcting what used to be a reasonable system, but unfortunately politics tends to extend and exacerbate obvious flaws in entitlements, and not correct them. I tend to think that maybe private industry should be allowed to throw their hat in the ring. Mandate unemployment insurance, but allow private companies to compete for the business. I'm sure there would be a lot to work out to make this possible, but its worth a thought. It works with car insurance in PA, why not unemployment?