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IPFS News Link • Domestic Policy

House approves extending unemployment benefits for 13 weeks in 27 states

• WCNT
 
So for Whitfield and others like him word of an extension is good news, “We need every break we can get.“
    “This has been different because this is more extensions than we’ve seen at least in the last 25 years,” said Greenville ESC & Joblink manager Danny Alston.  “Extensions several years back was just that one extension beyond your regular unemployment—this has been several extensions.“
    The Labor Department believes the recession and a record number of people exhausting their benefits this summer are behind the extensions.
    The money for a new federal extension will be paid through the federal unemployment tax.
 
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But’s Its My Hard Work Paying Your Unemployment

 

I found this story, from a Marketplace segment via Carpe Diem, especially irritating.  Our company has to pay for a lot of unemployment fraud, so seeing such fraud in action really annoys the hell out of me.

Quick background:  Employers pay unemployment taxes generally as a percentage of wages.  These taxes are based on a direct relationship with past claims from ex-employees.  The more of my ex-employees who make claims, the more premiums I pay.

Since I only have jobs for 6 months a year (it is a seasonable business), employees have the opportunity to file for unemployment the other 6 months.   BUT, the rule is generally that you have to be looking for work.

Unfortunately, I have numerous employees who work for me over the summer and take the winter off, but tell the unemployment office they are looking for work so they can collect unemployment anyway.  I have had employees call me from Mexico telling me about the great winter vacation they are having on the exact same day I see their names on the roles of those collecting unemployment (and thereby supposedly “looking for work”).

In California, where such behavior is rampant (and where the state unemployment agency has established penalties for employers who even think about asking the state to investigate one of his ex-employees for fraud) I pay over 7% of wages in unemployment taxes, vs. less than 1% in states without such fraudulent behavior.

So, with this background, I am thrilled this guy

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PurePatriot