Should people who quit get unemployment benefits, too?
vox.com
vox.com
Both are legitimate ways of thinking about it, and centuries of moral philosophy have failed to adequately reconcile these two ways of approaching social issues. So I can't imagine this will ever be definitively settled. (Maybe it shouldn't be. Ursula K. LeGuin gets my respect for being author of both The Dispossessed and The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas.) But I think that failing to recognize that that's the core of the issue dooms people to endlessly, uselessly accomplish little more than talking past each other.
E.g. Lockean ethics making property a fundamental right (later implemented as a "self evident god given thruth") is just a semi-theological justification for priviliged classes holding their privileges.
A bit like divine rights of kings, or superiority of certain ethnic groups, or intellecual and moral superiority of the noblesse.
I don't think anyone in the "We think that this might be best for everyone on average" camp is unaware of or unconcerned with potential abuses. I for one am not unconcerned, but I feel that these can be dealt with pragmatically - allowing some slippage. On the other side of that debate are people calling for absolutist, heavy handed punishments. (Some, if not most, on the understanding that "honest mistakes" by "good people" will of course be dealt with leniently. Why's my dog barking? Did you hear anything?)
If you quit (rather than being fired), you don't get benefits for the first 12 weeks.
This is an okay balance in my mind.
In the United States at least, AFAIK, employers pay for unemployment. Who pays when the employee voluntarily separates from an employer? It seems unfair to make the employer pay for an employee who left and no longer works there. I presume that cost will be paid by the state, which as a taxpayer I am curious how to prevent fraud and abuse.
I see that states require a certain amount of employment before a person becomes eligible for benefits. Maybe changing that?
I can understand someone who is unemployed and actively searching for a professional job to believe that, but I think that looks at the issue from a privileged position. No one is quitting their professional offices jobs just to be on unemployment, but I don't think the same can be said of lower income sh*t jobs.
Such a declarative statement of "no one" cannot be accurate because there is probably someone doing just that. Working a low wage job - maybe day labor - just long enough to qualify for benefits, then quitting and coasting until they have to work again.
It's possible, so how do you prevent it?
Even if you cut that in half that's still way more than $40/week.
And no, you're not paying federal income taxes on that low wage income.
Last year I was vacationing in Sicily and I met a French girl who was doing just that: traveling Europe while collecting unemployment from her home country. I am in favor of generous unemployment welfare, but there should be controls in place.
Legally, ethically, or morally? In the history of the world, there are definitely people who've done this, though the smarter move is to take a holiday in East Asia like the Philippines or somewhere else super LCOL rather than Europe.
And honestly, for the case of a construction worker, where working outside in the winter may not be feasible.... it makes sense.
Yes, some will work the winter. Some wont.
IMHO: Preventing abuse of UI is impossible, just like preventing piracy. All we can really do is make sure that the people who should get it, do.
Also, taking a severance package shouldn't impact UI. etc. All silly stuff. We want people with max incentive to apply to jobs and rejoin the workforce. The way we do that is keep them able to work (not homeless), and make them look for work... sounds like unemployment to me ;)
In my country, the weekly "jobseeker's allowance" is equivalent to working 8 hours at minimum wage, or working about 90 minutes at a computer programmer's salary.
You could use it as a "paid vacation" but it'd have to be an extremely austere vacation.
Let's cross that bridge when we get to it. I really hate when "but what if someone benefits too much?" worries when families are facing homelessness. I'll take some abuse of the system if it gets these Americas off the street and back in the workforce.
- You pay roughly 1-2% of your salary to it every year
- The max weekly benefit in California is $450 for 26 weeks, so roughly $11k. But it's also a percentage of your salary
- Unless you get fired/quit jobs every year it's probably very hard to get more out than you put in and even then there's probably other safeguards
So, our policy is to not fight anything, ever. Not worth the time.
Living without income is a foregone conclusion in 99.9% of cases, of course they can't, which is why they were working in the first place. Realistically, the whole system would be best rebranded as Temp-UBI, run it like Alimony, where X years at a job = X UBI time, call it a day. You'd probably end up saving money not having to process paperwork and admin the entire thing.
That last point is why it'd never happen of course, because you'd scrap a whole bunch of government workers, and, well, if you're the government, losing workers -does not spark joy-
This is a good counterbalance to companies that get “creative” with RTO mandates as backdoor layoffs to avoid paying out unemployment.
Far more useful is if your employer lays you off (short of major disciplinary reasons), you get at least 1 weeks pay for every year you've worked there (1.5 weeks if you are older).
For those that DO want to work this means that employers are looking at piles of fake applications from people that don't want to work and an increased chance of being filtered out.
Remember business thrives on there being a certain amount of unemployed people to create competition for jobs and keep wages low.
If everyone was employed then employers would have to pay decent wages because we would all be employed elsewhere.
Imagine being headhunted for a job at Mucky Dees for £25 per hour.
Unemployed are called workshy and feckless here on Airstrip One.
We have forced work clubs and the unemployed have to search for 40 hours each week for jobs, meaning that every local employer receives thousand of job applications that they throw in the bin. This is intentionally degrading and dehumanising.
The nazi's degrading and dehumanising "Work will set you free" over the entrance to Auschwitz concentration camp comes to mind.
I think it is everyones right to not work and be supported by the state.
WORK does not set you free!
Denmark has a 2.9% unemployment rate: https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/arbejde-og-indkomst/be...
I don't entirely know how that compare to the US.
To get the extended benefits, you have to pay more. Like any private insurance, pay more to get better benefits.
The insurance premium is also entirely tax deductible and nowhere enough to cover the scheme - the scheme which is highly regulated, well, because the government pays for it.
The current setup has bad incentives, too; you can make someone miserable with the goal of forcing a quit instead of firing them.
as long as that minimum length necessary pays for the unemployment -- fine.
work to live, don't live to work.
If everyone can easily and frequently draw from it at will, I doubt it's sustainable as is. Either benefits will have to go down or premiums will have to go up.
I didn't see the article address this aspect of it.
You've never had to or wanted to quit a horrible job, but been stuck because you needed the income/benefits?
If lots of people like the idea, a non-profit quitting insurance company could be created. It seems that it would largely end up being a savings account however. For instance, instead of retiring, simply quit.
While employed you pay "unemployment insurance" (a small percentage of your paycheck), and when you lose your job (not quit!, so fired, or the company goes under, etc.), and if you worked for 6+ months, and depending on the time worked (months of paid insurance) and your age, you can get 2-25 months of unemployment benefits (80% of your paycheck for up to three months, then 60, then 50%).
If you quit, you quit. You didn't suddenly lose your job and need help because of that, you planned it. No benefits. (except in cases where you quit due to special reasons, ie. you didn't receive your paycheck, employer did something illegal, etc.).
You do get some social benefits if you're an unemployed job seeker, but that number is much lower.
Not much abuse with the unemployment benefits (except a year or two before retirement in some cases), quite a lot of abuse of general social benefits (you get some money, free public transport, free kindergarden, some "extraodinary expenses" extra money yearly too, you have to send a few CVs every month, and you can work under the table and pay nothing.
> Around 70% of people on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps and Medicaid work full-time, the watchdog found, and the majority of these worked for larger companies with 100 or more staff.
So no, you can be gainfully employed in the US and still be on food stamps.
The Federal Povery Level for 2024 is $15,060. Assuming 1,720 hours a year for full-time employment, that's just under $8.76/hr.
The federal minimum wage is still $7.25/hr. So, the ultimate takeaway is in most states in the US working full time employment at the minimum wage of the state you will be below the FPL.
One important thing to think about though is what percentage of low wage full-time jobs are actually still at the federal minimum wage?
It strikes me as a great example of a policy incentivizing (enforcing, really) the very thing it's ostensibly supposed to discourage. These folks have dreams and want better jobs, and they're often deeply ashamed of being on welfare, but if you're supporting a family your overriding moral imperative is to make sure everyone is fed and healthy and that trumps everything else.
It's so incredibly stressful to live in a society where people have been raised on a Calvinist worldview that teaches that it's immoral to be unwealthy.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/poverty-awareness-mo...
I'm not sure which way you feel about this, but I'll emphasize that everyone else in the city is completely dependent on people making this life choice (or a related one, where they live outside the city in a stifling suburb, pay for it with years of their life spent commuting, and simultaneously lower everyone's health and quality of life by driving a car).
Can you give me a breakdown of how a family of three can survive off of this? I figure if you can't see how anyone in America could be below water on a minimum wage salary, you must have a good idea of how to survive on a shoestring budget.
Here, I'll make it simple.
At approximately $1,260/month, how would much would you allocate to each category?
Rent/Mortgage:
Groceries:
Transportation:
Utilities:
Healthcare:
Personal / Misc:
Entertainment:
Debt repayment:
Savings:
Two states, Georgia and Wyoming, have a minimum wage below $7.25 per hour. In all seven of these states, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies.
Most other states have higher minimums, but those in most cases have not kept up with inflation.
But in virtually all states you're broke af working for minimum.
https://www.indeed.com/q-mcdonalds-application-l-louisiana-j...
Plenty of people are living in poverty whilest working full time.
where the hell in America is that true? "well above" -- definitely not.
40h work week: $290 per week
52 weeks per year: $15,080.00
Federal Poverty level for 2024(family of 1): $15,060
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-fp...
McDonalds average pay(Crew Member): $13.03 per hour
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/McDonald's/salaries/Crew-Member
40 hour work week: $521.2 per week
52 weeks per year: $27.102.40
Average McDonalds pay for crew member puts you above Federal Poverty Level for a family of 3 ($25,820).
If you take the family of 1 numbers, you are $12,042.4 above poverty. Almost double. I think that qualifies for well above.
I also don't think it is good living but take it up with the federal government if you want to talk about where the Poverty Line and Inflation numbers come from, since they are the ones who like to screw with it to make themselves look good.
Edit: I missed the part about requiring an absurd number of dependents, that isn't true. With one dependent, numbers don't look that bad but having 2(family of 3) you are basically living hand to mouth with no savings.
However, that wasn't part of the exercise. Grandparent stated that: > McDonald's for 40 hours puts you well above poverty line
I decided to run the numbers rather than go with gut feeling of no way. Figured I would share since I did the work.
Grandparent was only haft right since they also state you would need a crazy amount of dependents to put you at Federal Poverty Level. If you had 2 dependents, you are above but living hand to mouth and one accident away from povert.
A better solution is to tax capital gains and corporate income at a rate that is closer to personal income taxes so that everyone pays their fair share.
Basically, I think its a culture problem. You could give the US 10 trillion a year in Taxes rather than 3 but the dmv is still going to have a line, take 3 hours to get through and have a rude morbidly obese woman behind the counter.
The DMV is intended as an example of a low complexity, low risk task that should be easily done well, and despite that, is usually done horribly. Thats my point.
If the government cant get a dmv right, why would I expect them to be able to handle anything else.
> Still have massive inflation
I'm not against higher corporate tax rates, but that's a separate problem.
VAT is the real answer. If people had to pay consumption taxes, the issue would go away. You have to spend the money somewhere.
The corporate tax rate should be increased, as well as taxes on high-earners, as well as the minimum wage. Capital gains taxes for individuals with 1M+ of assets may be considered, but is unprecedented in US tax history, no?
(or rather, not that people on the bottom think they’ll be on the top someday, but they’ve come to identify with the ruling class, and bought into the arguments that we can’t have nice things because of inflation or moral hazard or whatever else.)
-Decent wages
-Everyone has a job
Choose any two.
Only anxieties cause toil - somebody who is at peace and relaxed, is going to rest and play just like children do when their basic food and care needs are met (possible to do with existing worldwide resources)
If everybody sat around doing “nothing”, we would be better off than we are with everybody out there trying to make their own little mini dictatorship, which is what the current state of the world mentality for success is
Your mentality is why the world is so terrible
I agree, and for someone who is on couch watching TV whole day every day, thought of stopping that and finding new soul sucking job is bound to cause more anexity, than for the person replacing one trash job with the other...
I agree it would be better doing nothing than doing wrong things, but you can't have progress without actually doing something. And if you're doing something you will also do mistakes. I absolutely do not approve greedy employees and people leaving their best life years for someone's latest BMW, but I also understand that it is inevitable there will be players like that in the market. What we need to do is keep going - acquire wealth we need for our day to day life and family, secure our future, both financially, but also through activism in form of rights and benefits for working class.
You seem to deduce quite a lot about me from a comment that you read and understood in light of your own frustration.
This is not a description of human behavior, but of inanimate objects in Newtonian physics. I'm sure we could find a way to make a description of stellar evolution sound applicable here too, but that doesn't make it so.
> someone already working is more likely to change jobs, put pressure on the employer etc
Have you met anyone who works? Shit's exhausting. Almost everyone I know would be likely to seek a more fulfilling/satisfying/enjoyable job if they could quit their current job and survive with unemployment as a stopgap.
It was always easier for me, and all friends I know, to change jobs and upgrade while you're already in the workforce. After university, layoffs, sabaticals, even long vacations, it's kinda hard to get back "into it".
> Have you met anyone who works? Shit's exhausting. Almost everyone I know would be likely to seek a more fulfilling/satisfying/enjoyable job if they could quit their current job and survive with unemployment as a stopgap.
Yea but question was couch potato vs underpaid worker, not a temporarily unemployed person. Definition of couch potato in popular culture is a lazy person that watches TV, not concerned with much. I know more people who lived on CC between jobs, but still moved to new positions, than couch potatoes who got an actual job after that.
I don't understand your disagreement with what I said, while simultaneously agreeing with the other comment:
> There is also the in-between where these benefits allow you to quit and then look for another job. Something that can be hard to do if you are working long hours as you'd need to take days off that may or may not be approved depending on the company you are working for.
We're saying the same thing, I think. Only I'm not concerned with the supposed existence of "couch potatoes."
If an overexploited worker has a better life than someone unemployed, then the only moral problem is calling them "couch potatoes" in the first place :)
You don't those people to become a political force enough to demand more assistance, we know how that ends.
Who do you think the 7.5 million on SSI are, if not those people? We already have Basic Income scheme for people we deem unfit for doing any kind of work.
(Note this is different from the 7.3 million on SSDI, though people sometimes confuse the two, or simply don't know SSI exists)
Because typically the argument for a universal benefit is that it's simpler and reduces administrative overhead.
I am not sure how UI works (which of course entitles me to spout my opinion), but a system where it draws from a pool based off work history could be the middle ground solution.
If they are going to base your unemployment on your past pay, they might as well also base it on your past history.
To get to my point: if you work for a long period then quit / fired, you should have a bigger pool you can tap into for any reason. If you work for short periods then quit, you should have a smaller pool which trends to near-zero if you never stay at a place for long. If you work for short periods then get laid off, you should have the standard pool (ie: you shouldn't be unfairly punished through no fault of your own besides maybe being unlucky / bad at picking jobs).
I am paying into it regardless, I should be able to choose to be able to tap into it.
It disincentives people jumping on and off UI constantly on their own free-will but it gives a cushion to those who are burnt or needing to transition to a new field.
For example: if you get fired today you are entitled to a benefit if you have worked at least X months out of the last Y months. X and Y must be chosen carefully of course.