unemployment benefits 33 by Editorial Zone
Published Date: 05/07/08
If you've ever applied for unemployment benefits, you know that it's not enough to live on, at least not in the style to which you're accustomed when working. Unemployment benefits, depending on where you live, may amount to two thirds of your regular paycheck. Having your income suddenly cut by one third can represent quite a hit when compared to your expenses.
In 1935, following the Great Depression, the Social Security Act was implemented in the United States, intended as a social program to protect families faced with lack of work against dire poverty and homelessness. Unemployment benefits were intended to provide a short term measure, keeping people afloat until they could find suitable employment in their field. The unemployment benefits program was also intended to keep the county's economy moving.
Currently, when unemployment benefits are granted, your weekly benefits are based on income earned in the last fifteen months. The quarter during that period in which you earned the highest income determines the dollar amount of your weekly unemployment benefits. You are given six months to conduct your work search and find suitable work in your field.
Depending on your profession, sector of industry and current economic conditions, six months may or may not be adequate. For example, at the beginning of 2001, there was a shift in the Information Technology sector, resulting in many IT employers outsourcing the majority of available jobs to foreign countries, rather than hiring American engineers.
This shift was due to the globalization policies being promoted at the time, and proved to amount to a new Great Depression in the engineering fields. Millions of highly skilled workers were suddenly out of work, unable to compete with workers in India willing to work for pennies on the dollar.
These American workers eventually ran out of their unemployment benefits and were left high and dry. This globalization trend in the job market spread to other sectors, including the automotive and textile industries. With the mass movement of outsourcing, the American workers began to see that their unemployment benefits were only a countdown to being out of luck in terms of a viable steady income with which to support their families.
Faced with their former jobs becoming virtually extinct, people had to either gain new skills in a field not subject to outsourcing, accept work at far less pay, or end up on welfare programs in order to survive. Many people lost their homes and other assets, suffering a quick downwards spiral in their credit ratings as well.
Highly skilled workers often could not find work because employers hiring workers for jobs requiring minimum skills were reluctant to hire someone they knew would move on as soon as a better job, more in line with their skills, became available.
It's time the unemployment benefits program be revamped such that displaced workers may receive training for new careers during their period of unemployment benefits,which would also benefit the country's economy over the long term.
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