Senate Republicans Want to Force the Unemployed to Work For Free

[Brewman_Jax]

http://www.alternet.org/story/154117/sen..._for_free/

From the article:

Quote:In recent months, Florida and South Carolina have talked about forcing people to "volunteer" for their unemployment insurance benefits, only to be told it was against federal law. Now, Senate Republicans want to change federal law to allow states to pass such laws but to require all long-term unemployed people to "volunteer" 20 hours a week to continue receiving benefits, with an additional bill introduced by North Carolina's Richard Burr calling for them to spend 20 hours a week looking for work. Those requirements could be added to Republican efforts to allow drug testing requirements and to deny unemployment insurance to people who don't have high school diplomas.

The number of job-seekers for every available job just dipped below 4 to 1 for the first time in nearly three years. There are still simply no jobs for more than two out of three people looking for jobs. Job-seekers receiving unemployment insurance benefits spend more timelooking for work and are more likely to have looked for work through five out of six different methods than people not receiving benefits. A law requiring them to spend 20 hours a week looking for work is nothing but an insult to people who are already searching desperately; making it a requirement would likely add a reporting burden that would either detract from their search or force them to spend time beyond their active job searching.


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The repubs and the rabid RW have never liked the working people, they've never liked the social safety net, they don't like paying for it, and they hate seeing it used. It's almost as if they want to turn back the calendar to the pre-Civil War 19th Century, when slavery was both legal and accepted practice.

[jaxx]

Volunteer for 20 hrs a week and keep someone from having that job? If the pubs had their way there would be no unemployment benefits. These people are getting loonier by the day.

[Dimwitted Fool]

"Workfare" has been around for a long time. and it's been dreadful for just as long.

Some people have a twisted view of things-- it makes sense to me to allow people, within limits, to work for more than UE or whatever other dole is out there so they can build up a stake and eventually get off the dole. Even Reagan thought that the earned income tax credit was a great idea, and a properly structured welfare or UE to work program is along those same lines.

The whole system is set up to stop that, though, and has become major disincentive to work. Give up free food and a small check for a smaller paycheck and you're on your own? What's the point of that?

[KonaKane]

Somebody needs to tell these nitwits that forced labor went out in the early 1900s.

[azmouse]

Talk about providing incentives...

...incentives for employers to layoff paid workers and bring in unpaid labor.