How long would you extend unemployment benefits? The extension asked for by Dems involves going on past 99 weeks. So how much longer would you advise?
As you think, you may also want to consider this? The current laws on straightout welfare are limited to two years and then the checks stop. 99 weeks is almost two years. Would you bump the unemployed ahead of the standard welfare recipient? Or would you extend benefits for both groups? This would be fair and not doing so would be grossly unfair considering that the typical unemployed worker right now may have other assets to draw on....a house, an IRA, savings in the bank. OTOH the typical welfare recipient has nothing....no assets of any kind.
To extend unemployment benefits beyond two years while not extending welfare would actually be cruel, not just unfair.
The other thing to consider is that unemployment insurance is funded by employers to cover six months. It is an actual insurance program, in that the money is paid into the pool ahead of time by regular contributions from employers and it is a state administered program. Benefits beyond that are paid by the fed. govt. and really should then be classified as welfare because the money is not coming from an insurance pool, it's coming from appropriations.
With that in mind, consider this. Able-bodied married workers aren't entitled under the current laws to welfare. Women can't have a husband and get welfare. Aid to dependent children, yes, but not welfare, i.e. the stipend for living expenses. For this reason, it seems to me that extending unemployment beyond six months and what the insurance pool provided for to married workers is also grossly unfair to current welfare recipients.
And likewise for single men. Single men can't draw welfare under the current laws. Should they receive benefits past six months?
The request for extending benefits past 99 weeks is more problematic than might seem, and I think my questions are fair.
But I am curious to know what your limits, if any, are to extending unemployment. You seem to be more empathetic than me or than Q, so maybe you can put a measurement on your empathy. |
