[Vision2020] Unemployment Insurance

[Chasuk]

I'm going to have a bit of a gripe here.  I'm a full-time student, who
until recently has been working nearly full-time.  Last week my hours
were reduced to Saturdays only, which means a maximum of 7 hours
weekly, and that's if I skip lunch.  For the first time in my life,
I've been filling out claims for Unemployment Insurance.  I've
collected the impressive sum of $121 (plus change).  Today I got a
phone call about a discrepancy that may jeopardize future and pending
claims, and may cause them to "claw back" that $121 (plus change).

The nature of the discrepancies?  I was sick one Saturday and didn't
work, but reported that I was available for work, so this means that I
was shirking, or lying.  Of course, it could mean that I checked the
wrong box, or thought that "available for work" meant that I hadn't
left town.  Bt no matter; their interpretation seems to be that I am
trying to game the system.  My further heinous offfenses are reporting
6.5 hours when my employer reported that 7 hours had been available (I
didn't skip lunch), and reporting 7.5 hours when my employer reported
that only 7 were available (I'm guessing that I skipped lunch and
chose not to kick an indecisive customer out of the store at closing).

I can make 1.5X that impressive $121 (plus change) before it
interferes with my claim.  I make $8 an hour.  In other words, I will
never make anywhere near enough to interfere with that impressive
$121 (plus change).  But it apparently behooves our government to pay
some pencil neck (and I'm betting more than $8 an hour) to check for
minor discrepancies, because I might be LYING; I might be gaming the
system.

I'm 47 years old.  I've never had a period of unemployment since I
first started work, many years ago.  But these letter-of-the-law
pencil pushers need to make sure that they harrass the taxpayers as
much as possible.  They probably earn a comission for everyone they
can eliminate from making a claim.

Chas