Mom vs. the World

You know what I am sitting around doing nothing but collecting unemployment checks.  That is right you heard me, not looking for a job, wasting money, and laughing at all the suckers who are going to work and paying taxes so I can sit at home eating chocolate bon bons and watching soap operas.  I am loving it and having a ball.

If you believe that you are an idiot.  Plain and simple, an idiot.

I don't know what people think unemployment pays but since I have been on it for the past three years I can tell you it doesn't pay a lot.  Maybe if you are a single person still living at home on mommy's dime it is a lot, but if you are a family it doesn't pay squat.

For all the Americans out there that believe the unemployed are just lazy and not looking for work or don't want to take a low paying job shame on you.  Instead of looking to the American government and asking how the heck did we get here in the first place and why haven't you done something about it, some of you good Americans are blaming the unemployed.

I have received 99 weeks of unemployment at $275.00 a week BEFORE taxes.  Don't forget the IRS has to get their cut of that measly $275.00.  If you do the math over the 3 year period that is half of minimum wage.  You really believe a single parent with four children can survive on half of minimum wage?  I am awesome with finances and even better with budgets but I can't make money appear when it doesn't exist and neither can anyone else.

I listen to these politicians call the unemployed lazy and entitled and I want to just smack them right in the back of the head.  These "Representative" of the American people have no clue.  They have no idea what things cost in the real world.  They have no idea what it is to have to worry about their retirement money being gone at an advanced age.  They have no idea how to budget or even balance a budget.  But let us not blame the politicians….no we should blame the unemployed.

Let me tell how the budget goes for the government.  Parks and recreation are still being built and fully funded.  Presidential libraries still being funded.  Statues being built.  Programs that support an educated and developed society but yet provide no financial benefit to society are being funded.

When you question why a statue is being built on the State's dime instead of funding things like unemployment, health care, job creation, safety officers (police, fire, immigration and so on) or small businesses, the answer you get is, "building the statue creates jobs".  Hmm really, wow that is nice.  Couldn't we instead fund the police department and let them hire polices officer to create jobs?  How about some fire-fighters?  How about road crews to fix the roads?  Immigration officers to control immigration?  Those all certainly would create jobs as well and jobs that would actually benefit the country as a whole instead of statue.

We have a great deal of government funded programs that are certainly beneficial to us being a developed nation but in times like these, shouldn't we cut out these program?  Shouldn't we stop building the statues and parks and beautifying our little areas in favor of creating jobs, helping the unemployed and helping the economy recover?

Congress says no.  For them, it is a case of, the money is already in the budget for those things and we can't use the money on anything else so might as well build the statues, presidential libraries, parks and recreation.  Here is a thought, take your pencil erase the numbers from the parks and recreation column and pencil that money into the create jobs column.  Oh no, Congress can't do that, once the budget is set you can't adjust it, that would be criminal, people are counting on that money to be there to build their statues and parks and recreation.

These same politicians who say the money can't be used for anything else are the same ones telling me and millions of unemployed to "tighten our belt" "budget our money properly" and "stop being lazy".  When I lost my job, categories like entertainment, video games, movies, concerts, trips and other non-essentials where the first to go.  I moved the money out of those columns and put it into columns like electricity, running water, mortgage and you know the big important stuff.

Any budget can be changed even the governments.  To say that it can't be changed is asinine.  When you hit a rough patch you adjust and you make due.  Not our government, they want to keep funding their pet projects, increase the deficit and play with people's lives instead of "tightening their belt" "budgeting properly" and "stop being lazy".  So right back at you to all the politicians in Congress who keep running their mouths.

The unemployed are not the problem.  The politicians who pandered to big companies, let regulations slide, created incentives for these banks to do what they did with mortgages and passed tax incentives to send jobs out of this country and overseas, that is where your problem is.  These politicians who throw lavish parties and use state and federal funds to pay for things that are nice for our society as a whole but not helping the economy.  Things that could be put on hold until the finances of this country are in order.

Jobs

Let me tell you a little secret about finding a job.  In a recession like this it isn't that easy.  I am tired of the good Christian Americans spouting off about how they could find a job if they were unemployed and it wouldn't take them three years or two years or even a couple of months.  I dare you.  Try being unemployed for a year with ruined credit and see how fast you don't get hired.  Now make that three years and a repossession and foreclosure on your credit report along with bad credit and see how fast you don't get hired.  I just have ruined credit and I can't hired at freaking McDonalds.

For the first year I was unemployed there were no jobs available.  For the second year jobs started coming but employers are able to be extremely picky in who they hire with all the unemployed out there.  Three years down the road, jobs are opening up even more but now there are even more unemployed so employers have the pick of the litter.  You really think an employer is going to hire someone out of work for a year over someone out of work for a month?  Get a clue.

Economy

The massive amount of foreclosures is hurting the economy.  The massive amount of bankruptcies is hurting the economy.  You that have jobs will pay for that.  Credit card rates will go up as more and more bankruptcies are declared and consumer debt written off.  The price of consumer goods will also go up.  Companies aren't stupid they will raise the prices for the people who can pay to offset the ones who can't pay.  Banks will be more stringent in their loan processing for everything from small businesses, student loans, commercial loans, home loans and whatever else people have defaulted on and now will never pay back due to bankruptcies.

New homes being built is a boon to the economy but who can by a new home or get a mortgage for a new home with no job and ruined credit.  Small businesses are hard enough to start when the economy is good, imagine trying to start one in a bad economy.  How many small businesses will go under and declare bankruptcy leaving more people out of work and the debts wiped clean.  Some has to pay for that, there is no free lunch.  It will be all of you who are employed.  When the taxes go up, again it will be all of you employed who will pay for that as well.  The unemployed can't pay taxes on money they aren't earning.

Unemployment Benefits

Unemployment can't go on forever, that I agree with.  There needs to be a stop at some point.  I believe the solution is to stop providing the additional tiers to the newly unemployed as they are being re-employed rather quickly now with the jobs that have and are being created.  Provide an additional tier for the long term unemployed but let the tiers already in place expire.  It is like a weaning process.  Base unemployment tiers on needs.

The newest unemployed don't need additional tiers as jobs are returning.  If they stop funding the additional tiers and say, just two of the tiers out of the four available, the money could be used to fund a tier V to help the long term unemployed.

I am ok financially so even if there is never another tier I will be fine.  My advocacy or a tier V is simply due to the fact that the longest unemployed will be the last hired and therefore need further assistance.  The newly unemployed will be the first to be rehired and therefore need less assistance.

When I mentioned this in a group setting I was told I was being hypocritical to want to take away from the newly unemployed and not give them the same benefits I got.  I don't think I am being hypocritical.  I got the benefits I did because there was a bona-fide need for them.  The newly unemployed don't have the same need.

A little fact that many people seem to over look completely is that the unemployed who have been unemployed the longest, where the ones looking for jobs the hardest.  See we didn't have a guaranteed four tiers of unemployment to look forward to when we lost our jobs.  We thought we were getting 26 weeks and that was it.  When a tier was added we were grateful but we kept looking because we had no idea if there would be another tier coming.

Sorry to say this about the newly unemployed and I don't mean to sound mean but they have it made.  They know there are 99 weeks ahead of them.  They know there is a safety net there.  I don't believe for a second they aren't out looking for jobs but can they be pickier and wait long to get rehired?  Of course they can because they know the money is there.  So I firmly believe we need to let the tiers expire for the newly unemployed and add a tier for the long term unemployed.

All unemployment extensions need to come to an end, it can't go on forever.  The problem we have right now is how to bring them to an end in a way that benefits society and the economy not in a way that is going to make it worse.  Taking away the benefits from the long term unemployed is just going to lead to more foreclosures, more consumer debt not paid, more small businesses and some large businesses going out of business putting us right back to where we were when this whole recession started.

You can complain about the unemployed all you want but they did not create this problem.  Politicians and big business created this recession.  It wasn't a bunch of lazy over entitled unemployed people.  We are trying to find jobs.  We want to feed our children, be able to answer the phone without fear of being abused by a creditor looking for money, be able to go to sleep at night knowing where the money to pay the mortgage will come from and be able to provide for our families.

If you really believe it is more fun and better to live on a shoestring budget in fear of losing your house and car and not knowing if you will have money to buy food for the next week, or have electricity or running water, then you are an idiot.  That is essentially what you are saying every time you say the unemployed are lazy and over entitled and living off of unemployment.  It doesn't pay much no matter what people or politicians tell you.  The long term unemployed are living in fear.

Funny things is without additional help, those unemployed will next become welfare recipients and guess how much that is going to cost all you employed out there.  From what I hear you can live off of welfare, it does pay much better.  Maybe the long term unemployed should just all go file for welfare and watch welfare break the budget as well.  What a way to fix the economy, blame the unemployed.

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