MOOCHER WATCH!From Eric Dondero:
Some evidence of what many of us on the Libertarian Right have suspected all along: Extended Unemployment Benefits leads to reluctance to seek Employment.
From the Detroit News:
In a state with the nation's highest jobless rate, landscaping companies are finding some job applicants are rejecting work offers so they can continue collecting unemployment benefits.Another example cited:
It is unclear whether this trend is affecting other seasonal industries. But the fact that some seasonal landscaping workers choose to stay home and collect a check from the state, rather than work outside for a full week and spend money for gas, taxes and other expenses, raises questions about whether extended unemployment benefits give the jobless an incentive to avoid work.
Members of the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association "have told me that they have a lot of people applying but that when they actually talk to them, it turns out that they're on unemployment and not looking for work," said Amy Frankmann, the group's executive director. "It is starting to make things difficult."
B&L Landscaping in Oak Park finds the labor pool is noticeably weaker and less motivated, director Richard Angell said, even though the company still gets 80 to 100 applicants per week.The current unemployment rate in the State is 14.1%, highest in the Nation.
"We're just getting people coming in, filling out paperwork, hoping they won't get hired," Angell said. "... We're having a hard time finding quality applicants."
BlogProf (Michigan blog) offers this startling analysis:
The average landscape worker earns about $12 per hour in Michigan equating to about $480 per week. However, taking out taxes, the net isn't different from the collecting an unemployment check for doing nothing at all. Thus the incentive for funemployment. Why bust your butt 40 hours per week in a physically exerting job when you can collect almost the same for 26 weeks from the state and another 73 weeks from the federal government? That's 99 weeks of getting a check for not working.Of course, if Taxes on lower-end employment were completely eliminated, and the length of the unemployment benefits cut dramatically, these individuals would have all the incentive in the world to take an honest day's job.
11 comments:
I wouldn't think that someone making $12 / hour would be paying much Fed income tax. Must be MI state taxes, huh?
A few months ago, I was talking to a guy who was on unemployment. He mentioned to me that he was going to go to Europe for a few months right after his unemployment ran out. He told me that being on unemployment required that he be "available for work." He had no interest in finding a job until he got back from Europe.
Here's a better case. I actually do know a bona fide welfare bum. I met him in February 2007 at a "self-help" seminar in Dallas. He is in his 30's, living in Waco with his parents. Every month, he gets a disability check of around $600 per month.
I don't think he has ever had a single job interview. He frequently turns off his cell phone. He even complains that he is "bored." I ask him what he wants to do, and he often says that he wants to go into business (yet has no idea what kind of business). He also reminds me that he doesn't have to work that hard because he already has that disability check.
Back in 1987, my brother got unemployment when he was on strike. They got it because some bureacrat ruled that the company engaged in "unfair labor practices." This was in West Virginia, which you might as well nickname The Welfare State or The Beg for Handout State.
In my humble opinion, I would say that this stuff is about half and half. Some people collecting unemployment definitely are victims of "bad luck." Others are people who prove what Bob Bidinotto once wrote: "Criminality causes poverty."
I'm also willing to bet that a lot of these "welfare bums" are single. The money you get from unemployment is certainly survivable money when nobody else depends on you. I don't know anybody with family who wants to be unemployed. And some guys would rather be at work than at home.
Can we really blame these guys for mooching? After all, these guys see billionaire bankers cause financial hardship for everyone. The federal government pays off these billionaire bums. You have to ask the question: who really gets the most from welfare? Where is most welfare money spent?
When I talk to some people on the "left," they actually seem quite sympathetic to the idea of ending welfare for EVERYBODY. Back when Clinton was doing "welfare reform," Robert Reich said: "Let's end corporate welfare, too."
Is anybody else having flashbacks to George Constanza from Seinfeld?
Didn't he pull off a similar scam to stay indefinitely on unemployment?
Great article Eric. I'm originally from Michigan as many of you know. And I can verify the truth of this story. A friend of mine from college worked at Countrywide Bank before it folded. I think he worked at another bank briefly beofre being laid off in April 2009. He visited me in Dallas last December and said he was offered at least two temp positions but turned them down because they were only for $12 an hour. He told me that he wasn't ready to go back to work, "maybe in March, or preferably July of next year." What fucking bullshit! And the worst thing is this asshole is your stereotypical FOX News watcher who gets offended when you say that "liberal commentator" Stephen Colbert is funny. That in a nutshell is why Michigan is so fucked up. It's because of the people who live in it. But of course no politician will say that. And in the current Governor's race, Congressman Pete Whorekstra boasts about how he's the most conservative candidate while at the same time getting in bed with the teacher's union and the Teamsters. Republican Whoresktra isn't even as conservative as say Democrat Chet Edwards of Waco.
My friend eventually went back to work, but guess what? It was this past March 2010 as he wanted. See, even in a state as fucked up as Michigan, you can still find a job when you want to despite the unemployment rate. But because of unemployment benefits and a union entitlement culture, no one gets off their ass until they have to. That's why I got the hell out!
And yes, Michigan has a flat 4.35% state income tax. Plus, sitting at home you don't incur the expense of filling up your car with gas.
There are 500,000 plus unemployed / laid off workers in Michigan. Over 100,000 people were approved and using the No Worker Left Behind grants. The majority of those folks were 40 years old and above. How many of these 500,000 plus people in Michigan do you really think are lazy? How many have lost their homes to forclosure and how many more will?? Do you really think these so called lazy unemployed workers in Michigan would rather loose their homes then work?? Come on people get real. Ger real, real soon. I pray to God you never have to go through what these lazy 500,000 people have gone through.
well heres the deal with landscaping in mi i started back in 2003 working my landscaping job. back then work was hard, as many hours you could physical work a week. then our gov screwed it all up. she let all the auto workers lose there jobs and move there factories out of state. then all those shop rats started becoming landscapers. it cracks me up every day i see a another gm worker out cutting a lawn for 20 bucks that we use to get 45. they don't pay and taxes on that cut, all they see is that they made 20 bucks a hour (-gas and there time) so relie only 10 bucks if that) these are the same people that would yell at people crossing there picket lines. they had health care making like 20 plus a hour and that was not good enough. way to go UAW you screw everyone.
As far a unemployment i would get 350 every two weeks that's 700 a month. i would rather work then get unemployment any day. one thing i can say is that landscapers work harder in 7 months than most people work all year. landscaper make the world you all live in better but the only thing you can say is that were bum's living of the state. you people are so greedy you pull home 50,000 to 70,000 then when times get tight you point the finger at landscapers. maybe when times were so good for you should of payed off your house and saved some of your money.
Well I am not sure how it is in Michigan, but in Southern California, it is near impossible to find a minimum wage job, especially if you have no prior experience related to that job. I would love to be a landscaper, but there simply is no way to be hired unless you have family contacts.
The only hope for getting any job is in fastfood, and the pace is so fast and maddening that I am unable to do it. I am a litle slower and less agile with my hands than other people, and was fired before for this even though I was doing my best. Only the very worst jobs are left- jobs that quite a few people are actually unable physically to do.
I would love to go into landscaping, or wash windows, even for minimum wage- but these jobs are simply not available, and it is hard to be entrepeneurial with no prior experience having done these things. The cheapest tiniest apartment here is $1350 a month, including all the hidden fees they tack on, assuming you sign a
9-month contract.
Obviously some people are mooching off the system, but I take offence at what most of the readers on this site think about the poor and unemployed. I highly doubt any of you really understand what life is like for those earning minimum wage and having to work a very physically demanding fast-paced job, often three part-time jobs simultaneously, working 60-70hours per week. Working in many minimum wage jobs simply is not sustainable. There is not enough money to pay for the essentials, and for those without family support, they are teetering on the edge of homelessness. In Orange County, CA,
60% of the homeless are working full time- they cannot afford rent, and live in windowless vans in parking lots, having to move their vehicle around at timed intervals at night to avoid security guards.
My view is that if some people are too lazy to take a low paying job, maybe it will force employers to pay higher wages. The problem is not so much unemployment, but rather that working conditions for low-level workers are extremely difficult (there is little incentive for companies to improve conditions) and wages are so low.
Even if everyone did get trained and educated, there still would not be enough upper-level good jobs to go around.
Yes, there is an incentive for people to be unemployed, but maybe the problem is that the jobs are paying so little, not that welfasre is too generous.
My brother was fired because a staff member at his company lied on him. He is looking for a job, but because he don't have a drivers license no-one is willing to hire him. How about that for jobs in Michigan? How do you get a fucking job if you can't get a drivers license? Any smart ass answers to that? Not everyone in Michigan is lazy........
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