This is a question for folks who were let go and still do not work - how do you guys cope with the fact that you are receiving handouts? I personally struggle with this, I wish I could change things but the fact is that I am receiving money from the gov and I never had to do this before.
What are your thoughts?
You EARNED that Money !!!
If you paid into the system, it isn't government assistance. You're simply getting a meager amount paid back (far less than bailed out banks and corporations got). It's more like insurance that you've paid for 100-fold.
Nothing is wrong with Gov't assistance to help support you get back on your feet and find another job/career. Lots of good people were let go thru no fault of their own were LAIDOFF ,time changes the company makes changes and people may have to make changes, the government takes hard earn monies from your paychecks to go towards these social programs that will assist the unfortunate situations people are in, i would never deny myself or family any of these benefits that provide individuals a new start in life. STOP listening to the politicians and nay sayers who also benefit frm the government with your earned tax paying dollars. There will always be scammers but you concern yourself on what you need to do to take care of yourself and your family.
@hso - great post
My sister-in-law helps out at a monthly food bank. She sometimes brings home vegetables and fruit that are passed over by the younger crowd and left to rot at the end of the day. A bag of potatoes confuses many of the clients and a bag of figs was soundly rejected. So don't feel guilty if you have to visit one of those places, there are things going to waste anyhow.
Of course you would agree with yourself. It's only natural.
BTW, when did a paid into program called unemployment morph into government assistance?
You know what government assistance really is? It's when I "assist" the government, when I help it to go on, by paying 30% payroll taxes my whole working life, as well as sales tax my entire life. That's government assistance. Anything back is merely a minute partial repayment of monies lent.
When I was laid off, I was not eligible for any govt assistance until my severance period ran out. It was 28 weeks and I found employment around week 22, so I didnt take a dime of govt money. I agree with the original post though. I had made a good living on VZ and didnt want to take any govt assistance even though I had earned it.
I think the original post is a troll, rather than a genuine concern. Just someone trying to engineer a conversation.
Get, Real, get off the guilt trip and realize we have been screwed on purpose. Its their friggin fault through the engineered screwing of all USA IT workers. They should pay up each dime owed to us, in fact they should impose a tax on all H-1B workers so that money will flow to us who have been displaced. Let the scabs work and pay us, and keep their wages maybe $12 an hour and the rest of the wage goes to us former IT workers.
The system is stacked against the work seeker in more ways than one. There is age discrimination afoot. By and large, younger workers are sought out at the detriment of younger workers.
Also, productivity gains over the last almost 100 years have gone almost exclusively to employers, the elite class, rather than shared with society, the US citizenry.
When a time saving device comes along, employment can suffer as a result of that device. So, simple mathematics would dictate, if you're interested in maintaining near-full employment, you reduce the number of hours necessary to work (or, conversely, come up with new labor-intensive enterprises). Neither's happened. No promised shovel-ready jobs.
Computers changed everything, except the number of hours required to work. If trends of the 1800s and beyond had continued undeterred, in regards to having a concession in the amount of hours demanded worked to keep up with productivity gains, we would be at a two-day work week by now.
Some people will inevitably knee-jerk scoff at this, rather than attempt to wrap their minds around it. That is because they've been conditioned to, they're recipients of clever propagandists whose aim is to keep these naysayers shooting themselves in the foot for the remainder of their lives and dragging their peers down in the process, rather than advancing their own, and society's, well-being. They are unaware pawns who will shoot down their own people, the middle-class, so that those on the higher rungs of society can continue to have it easier at everyone else's expense.
If there were a reduced work week, and the resultant near full-employment, it would be accompanied by less government handouts, entitlements, unemployment, family-welfare services, broken families, divorces, jails... Suspend your rigid way of thinking and imagine a world where you could spend a fair amount of your life here on earth enjoying your families, your hobbies, and the fruits of your labor, instead of constant work, work, work like some modern-day slave.
That poor individual who was toiling seven days a week in some godawful factory did, and lived to see a workweek where he or her finally attained one day of rest, being granted Sundays off.
Then, some time later, there was the American who dreamed a better America would be one in which they got to enjoy, dare I say it, a TWO DAY WEEKEND! Heaven on earth.
Then, joy of joys, there came the 40-hour-work-week. Now, if you wanted American's to toil beyond that, you would have to pay a premium for their idle time and make it well worth being away from their families and idle pursuits.
Later on, some got a 35 workweek and then.... Nothing.
It stopped.
In fact, in many ways, it reversed. They labeled everybody a member of management in order to circumvent the 40-hour limitations. They then demanded individuals be on call 24/7, even on "vacations". Life suddenly became one of cancelled plans, disappointment, and hastily rearranged schedules with little advanced notice. A fake need for people to lose their weekend arose and, suddenly, shutting down operations just because it was a Saturday, family time, became unthinkable. It got in the way of almighty profits for the business owner and the stockholder.
But I paint with a wide brush. After all, not all are suffering. While we toiled away and enriched them, there were no cancelled weekends amongst the wealthy class. No missed family events in Greenwich. No sixty hour workweek in the Hamptons. No staycations for the Park Avenue crowd. No, no, no. Those sacrifices are to remain the sole domain of the upper-middle, middle, and lower classes in society, so that the wealthy can get richer and continue to enjoy the pursuits of their down time, down time that comes off our backs and is reflected in the eyes of our disappointed children.
Is this why we're on Earth? Is this the payoff for being blessed enough to be born in the United States of America (or to have been afforded an opportunity to immigrate here)?
It's now a nation where we are worked each week until we're spent, told we're greedy and jealous if we want something better, ridiculed if we try to band together in groups as a means of getting our workplace grievances more-readily addressed, attacked by those amongst us who are too dopey to know they're being used, where it's now frowned upon to take vacation or to get sick, where we are forced to train foreigners who are taking our jobs. We're a Nation where it seems that every career that cannot be exported to a cheaper part of the world is instead filled by importing cheap labor. We're spit out at too young an age, but too old for other employers to touch us. We're greedy if we expect "entitlements" (I hate that word as it's designed to make recipients look bad) that we've paid into, weather it be social security in old age, unemployment at any age, or a man or woman who has served their Nation militarily and now simply, and deservedly, needs a helping hand.
This place is going down the tubes. I think that's why the people on the outer fringes are now getting the most attention in politics. People are convinvced it will take a Sanders or a Trump to undo the damage that's been inflicted and everyone else in the race is just giving lip service while remaining part of the problem.
What's the point of hitting the lottery in terms of our birth location, if nothing can be made of it due to outside influences constantly manipulating and inflicting unfair damage to our well-being?
I want to enjoy my life AND I'm not lazy.
I deserve better.
You do too.
The loss of a job is one of the most distressing and dispiriting experiences that can be suffered. It robs people of their dignity and self-respect. It bares a crushing stigma of shame. ONLY IF YOU LET IT. Lots of good people were let go thru no fault of their own. In Irvine CA we've had round after round of layoffs. For the most part all of those people have found jobs.
So Paying taxes to the government is just fine?, for what? just like unemployment compensation, you already paid for it, remember that many people may not be able to collect social security in the feature, and the same goes to many benefits which people have contributed for, Unemployment is such a shameful and depressing experience, when I applied for mine I was told by the office rep "there is a reason why you are unemployed",
I try to avoid thinking about it. This is the least painful choice, but also the one that is least likely to solve the problem. This is why unemployment is something of a black hole that is easy to fall into and difficult to climb out of. The unemployed are thus left with the difficult choice of daily experiencing the shame of rejection or turning numb to their situation. Either way they lose.
Let no one ever say unemployment is easy or comfortable. The loss of a job is one of the most distressing and dispiriting experiences that can be suffered. It robs people of their dignity and self-respect. It bares a crushing stigma of shame. Pity the unemployed who must suffer in silence, I hope you know, that you are not the only one, there are million of American in our shoes
12/31 is my last day on the books after 25 years. I've been paying into the system for 40 years so useless sacks of **** that didn't WANT to work, didn't have to. Now's my chance to get some of it back. I'm gladly applying for unemployment, WIC, ADC, food stamps, welfare, obamacare, section 8 housing, and even government cheese like they gave out in The 80s.
Unemployment like Social Security is money that has been taken out from your pay checks over the years. It is not a handout but money in which you have already contributed. Hope that helps you and best of luck to you in 2016. There is a better life outside of Verizon.