Dr. Ada M. Fisher: Unemployment Compensation at Whose Expense?

The move to extend unemployment benefits is short sighted and penalizes those squirrels who bothered to save up their nuts. The problems with unemployment extensions include as data increasingly shows, those who make more in unemployment than could be made in a job have been reluctant to seek work until that benefit is stopped.

Another problem is that the jobs are not there for those who will increasingly be chronically unemployed, e.g. those with little education, failed socialization skills, incarceration histories and inopportune skill sets. Lastly the demise of low skilled manufacturing jobs in favor of high tech options will leave a void playing field for too many. Who knew you would need an iPhone ten years ago? Think of the jobs eliminated by such technology, made and often brought to us by non-American entities. These are no longer our jobs but rather global entities.

Attorney William Graham of Salisbury, NC has developed a novel idea of Salary Gap Insurance to cover the difference in salary losses which can occur for those who would consider such an investment.

Paying for unemployment compensation means those diminishing workers remaining will have to shoulder more of the burden. A new Senate initiated payment ploy for the program proposes allowing corporations to decrease their contributions to unemployment plans to cover this cost and maintain their profits. This is called “smoothing” or as I see it, ploughing the field with non-fertilizing manure.

Six months is a reasonable maximum for unemployment compensation with the expectation that jobs will be sought. Those seeking unemployment should seek available job training, register with the employment securities commissions and be required to take available jobs to receive benefits or federal assistance. You don’t smooth the path for work reentry by allowing folks to pick and choose which jobs they are willing to take or do so at the expense of those who set aside funds to take care of themselves and their families.

North Carolina, thanks to its legislature over the last four years, has had to scuffle to rearrange its tax base and benefits structure to cover over $3 billion in deficits found in its pension fund which pays the retirement benefits of teachers, policemen, firemen and other state workers. For being fiscally responsible, the state’s Republicans have taken untold flack trying to shore up a system going bankrupt fast while also insuring essential goods and services were covered. New York has over a $10 billion deficit, California tops $15 billion and Florida is above $5 billion, all promising more to citizens while debts mount. This is cavalierly dismissed in the almost $20 trillion deficit which still plagues this nation while spending continues unabated and tax increases steal from the stockpiles of those who saved through Social Security, pension funds and other vehicles designed for retirement or a rainy day.

****

About the Author: Dr. Ada M. Fisher is a physician who was a medical director in a fortune 500 company, previous member of a county board of education, licensed secondary education teacher, Author, Poet and is the NC Republican national Committee Woman. Her pending book Common Sense Conservative Prescriptions Solutions Good For What Ails Us, Book I is available through Amazon.com. Contact her at P. O. Box 777; Salisbury, NC 28145; [email protected] .