[Vision2020] Unemployment Insurance

Sat Feb 16 22:29:33 PST 2008

Chas and Bev,

  I am a firm believer that we should shut down the Department of Labor and the Unemployment office and give the tax dollars to local churches and private organizations that operate food banks and offer shelter because they are absolutely worthless government bureaucracies that do nothing but provide jobs for those people that work there. 

  I got my hours slashed from 52 hours a week to 16 hours a week, and I got a whopping $29, total. That is all I qualified for. And then they took it away for the same reason you said, I checked an incorrect box. Now, since I spent about 40 hours and $30 in getting them all their documentation, I figured it was just not the worth the effort.

  When I applied for food stamps, they turned me down because I had a car worth more than $1000 dollars. I was either to eat my car or sell it to eat, never mind how I was to go to job interviews, go to job, see a doctor, transport groceries, and the what not. When I applied for low income housing, I was turned down because I was a full time student, even though I was only taking 6 credits at the time. 

  Go figure this stuff out. They spend more on denying people benefits and making sure people don't get any then they actually spend on helping people that really need it. Churches and the good will of people are the only thing that has kept me afloat, the government doesn't do crap for me, and I am a disabled man making less than $15,000 a year. Who the hell are companies helping if not us, Chas? Apparently just wealthy people that know how to hire lawyers and manipulate the system. 

  I say shut the damn thing down, spend the money on something useful, lower gas tax, no food tax, or hell, give a tax break to the guy that actually does help me out.

  Best Regards,

  Donovan

Bev Bafus <bevbafus at verizon.net> wrote:
  I feel your pain. The entire system stinks.

If it's any comfort, on the employer's side, I groan every time I get an
envelope from the Department of Labor. It's usually one of the handy forms
with a calendar table on it, requiring me to dig out old time cards, and
list hours per day. The level of information one is required to add is
amazing. I always wondered who looked at those. Now I know - the Letter of
the Law Pencil Pushers!

Thinking of you...
Bev

-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com
[mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]On Behalf Of Chasuk
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 11:13 AM
To: Vision2020
Subject: [Vision2020] Unemployment Insurance

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

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