Unemployment extension passes!

[Urban Ranger]

Ouch, that rots.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Takes money, and we're living from check to check. I foolishly listened to one of my coworkers who advised against moving to Southern Florida (where there are quite a few jobs). He said that the pay scale was much worse there than compared with the North. At that time, I had the money to move to another market, but used it up while looking for work before unemployment kicked in (three months after my lay off). In retrospect, I should have hunkered down, but I didn't know I wasn't gonna be able to find work.

just out of curiousity, about how much does unemployment hand out? you don't have to answer if you don't want to, i'm just genuinely curious.

[chequita guevara]

It depends on how much you made before you became unemployed. Generally you get 2/3rds your former paycheck, up to about $1000 a month, adjusted for cost of living around the country (i.e., Massachussetts gets more than we do in Florida). I get $1100 a month, which seems like a lot, but after rent and bills, leaves me nothing for food. Since we have to eat, we have to juggle bills. If I could scrape together a few hundred to rent a truck, I'd move to a cheaper apartment.

You don't get medical or food aid, but you can get money for retraining, so if I wanted to go to welding school or something like that, I could.

In return for the money you have to apply for at least two jobs a week. Kinda lame, I think (it should be at least one a day), but they are considering that it there may not be many jobs in your career in your area. If you apply for a job and they make an offer, you must take it, as long as it is the job jor which you applied. So if I go in and apply to be a manager at KFC, but they offer me a cashier position, I'm not required to take it. If a qualified offer (you applied and it's within 80% of your former salary--remember, the government wants you to make lots of money so they can tax it) and you refuse, you lose your benefits.

Supposedly, if you send out 100 resumes, 20 will call you, 5 will want to interview you, one may decide to hire you. Obviously, the more resumes you send out the better your overall odds of finding work are. If my outbox is anything to go by, I've probably applied to four hundred jobs since June.

I could draw several conclusions from this. A) I suck and no one wants to hire me. Well, last year the same resume had me get through the first round of quite a few companies. Citibank picked the top six out of 87, CDW the top 6 our of three hundred, etc. I was in that top group a lot. So I don't think the problem is me, although it may be with my location given the aforementioned prejudice against Southerners and small media markets (or it could be the Clash of Civilizations website, which is being redesigned by me right now but still has its old ugly format).

More likely the problem is, companies just don't want to hire out of their geographical area right now, cuz they don't want to pay relocation expenses. I've seen jobs sit open for more than six months, and I'm sure they've had to have cycled through all of their available designers.

[Sava]

I'm a college student with few bills and would have problems living on $1,000 a month just for myself. I'm up to my eyeballs in student loans, and I'm betting the farm that I'll be able to get a real job after I finish school. Anyways, I live a very frugal life and I'm lucky that I paid my car off during my senior year in high school. Rent and (if I had) car payments would easily surpass $1,000. That doesn't even count insurance, gas, food ( sounds funny but too many people have to sacrifice the 'luxury' of eating). After this burst bubble, and with the amount of debt that the American people are getting into, I think that American capitalism is failing. I honestly hope that Bush, or the next president can do something about the economy. Because if they can't, well, that nasty R word is going to creep up as unemployment and poverty continue to rise.

[Al B. Sure!]

Orange:

I sell bootleg cds... that **** is some hard work...


thanks

[orange]

so you steal and then market your stolen goods. Some moralist you turned out to be.

Why don't you do what any normal inner-city kid does and sell drugs

[Imran Siddiqui]

Note the bolded part. 'T'ain't true, I say. I just called my state unemployment agency for information this morning, and some of the people with whom I spoke were unaware that the law had been passed

This is why we on the right rail against bureaucracy, che .

[Al B. Sure!]

Orange:

because drugs are bad... i dont want to spread the epidemic of drug use... on the other hand, music is art and I'm making art more affordable to people...


thanks

[orange]

no you're not. You're simply flooding the market with a cheaper alternative which has little to no overhead. You make 99% of the profit (obviously you pay for the CDs)

It's more immoral than selling drugs, IMO. Not that I have any problems with filesharing or downloading music, but I do with profiting off of it. Nor do I have any sympathy for most record companies.

[Sava]

If I buy marijuana from someone, there is no victim (or real crime for that matter). But Speer, you're costing the record companies money. That's stealing. But I won't berade you for that. I think software and music piracy is a good thing and less immoral than the practices of the recording industry.

[Az]

Why don't you do what any normal inner-city kid does and sell drugs

[Flubber]

hmm lot of stuff here

Che-- I am happy about the extension-- In Canada, unemployment benefits are pretty much a year and it is a federal program all the way-- they have never extended the program that I can recall

I know that unemployment can really suck since I went through it myself there from mid July to the beginning of December-- I never collected any unemployment as I was still collecting severance pay from my wrongful dismissal but I was starting to get worried ( building a house and a pregnant wife while having no job is no fun). Just in December I joined a firm of consultants-- there's no guarantee of pay ( I am a consultant not an employee) but they have good work so things should be ok-- Perhaps that should be a thought-- Would there be a market for your work if you sought design work yourself. I'm assuming you have the necessary equipment. You may be able to pick up a little cash while cultivating your contacts.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If I buy marijuana from someone, there is no victim (or real crime for that matter).

What about the cops that are deprived of their black market sales when you buy from a non-cop ?

[Boris Godunov]

OMG! Speer comes on here deriding che for some moral failing in getting unemployment, and here he proves to be a THIEF?

Please, please, please tell me that was a joke. If I were that much of a hypocrite I think my brain would explode in protest.

[Shi Huangdi]

I applaud Che for doing his best to try to get a job and make an honest living for himself. Better then Albert Speer, who gets money by stealing the work others work hard to produce and selling it for himself. At least when someone sells drugs they might be selling products they obtained without coercion, fraud, or theft. Funny how Albert Speer pretends to be Mr.Morality at that the same time he is stealing for a living.