Let's counter the "Unemployment is Welfare" meme.........

[TheDebbieDee]

Hello, everybody. I've become aware of the effort of the GOP to equate unemployment with welfare. When ever we hear co-workers or friends trying to draw the same parallels we should point out that;

1) Unemployment is an insurance plan that you and your employers pay the premiums on and when you file a claim, you are getting back the money you put into it.

2) Unemployment is high among ALL Americans, not just brown Americans.

Can anybody else add easily recountable facts to counter the Unemployment = Welfare meme?

[zorahopkins]

1. It's Just The Right Thing To Do

When people become unemployed as a result of forces in the economy, providing them with the funds they need in order ot survive is just the right thing to do.

[elocs]

2. Unemployment is an entitlement like Social Security (also insurance).

If you are entitled to get it, you get it.

[WCGreen]

3. Actually it is fully funded by employer contributions based on your

earnings. There is no direct contribution from the employee.

They employee contributes to Medicare and Social Security through the FICA deduction.

The employer is allowed to deduct his Unemployment Tax as an expense.

[Igel]

6. You can't believe that's all it is, can you?

Otherwise what was the fuss over with Congress not passing another unemployment benefits extension?

If it's fully funded by employers through local unemployment taxes, there's absolutely no need for the budget deficit fight because the extension wouldn't take one dime in federal money.

It's easy to adduce some evidence for a position--it's an entitlement or it's funded by local taxes. It's harder to hold either position while considering all the evidence. Basic benefits are like an insurance policy--hence "unemployment insurance". Some extensions are funded through local/state taxes, and are usually viewed as bailouts, sometimes as loans. Other extensions work essentially like an entitlement.

[PRockGirlScout]

9. EUC

EUC benefits ARE federally funded. The regular 26 weeks of UI that one is eligible to receive comes from their respective state's UI fund.

That isn't to say that the UI = welfare argument isn't horribly flawed. I just wanted to clarify why the GOP is able to hide behind the deficit argument- EU payments were the only thing that was not going to be offset by tax revenue i the HR 4213 package.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

13. Welcome to DU!

We need good thinkers here.

Stick around and contribute your thoughts...

:hi:

[bahrbearian]

15. Employer contributions are part of an employee wages and value to the employer.

the employer is profiting on his employee.. and the government is taxing the employee.. many employers have rigged the game, as not to have to pay Federal tax. I do pay my taxes.

[WCGreen]

16. I prepare taxes for a living and Unemployment funds are

levied on employers. There is no matching. Matching comes with FICA and Medicare. FUTA is levied on the wages paid by the employer and are the responsibility of the employer.

Believe what you want...

It matters not a wit to me if you don't really know what you are talking about...

[bahrbearian]

17. They employer pays in, the employee bleeds in

[MikeMc]

20. You are somewhat wrong, WC. (UC vs. Medical)

I just went through my check-stubs, for the last 3 years. As a union construction worker, I work for many different employers every year, through my union hall's hiring referral system. This happens to millions of AFL/CIO - employed Americans, every year. So I receive check-stubs from many employers, in many different formats, during any given year.

Each employer, (on every check stub), shows the 'employee contribution' that is deducted for unemployment funds. Sometimes the deduction is called 'State Unemployment Insurance (SUI)' as Busch Electric Construction Inc. (in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania), terms it. Sometimes it is termed 'Pennsylvania Unemp. SUTA', as Franklin Electric, LP (in Pittsburgh, PA), puts it. Or it is put down as 'PA Unemployment Compensation (UC) Fund', as Lighthouse Electric Company, Inc. calls it. Or it is deducted as 'PA UC (Unemployment Comp)', by Precision Electrical Contractors, Inc. In the case of Hoffman Elec., Inc., my wage deduction is mysteriously abbreviated as 'EE SUTA PA' (the 'U' is for unemployment); or it's termed (and deducted) as 'SDI' by Chapman Corporation (& you got me by the short ones what any letter means, but it's the same deduction. Maybe the 'S' means State). Fallon Electric Co., Inc., in Pittsburgh, calls it 'PA State Unemployment Compensation (UC)'. Powell Electric Corporation calls it 'State Unemployment Insurance (SUI)'. These seven employer-check-deduction-entry-titles are just a few examples of check stubs I currently have at hand. The deduction title entries are all indisputable and very proveable facts.

Conversely and simultaneously, each employer shows zero dollars that I have earned, or have had deducted, for my contractually-obligated medical plan. (Local # 5, IBEW, AFL-CIO secured.) As a currently unemployed person, I can say that I owe my union's medical insurance plan $280 per week, or $7 dollars per hour, if I want my family and myself to get medical coverage. The employers, insurance companies, and government are all very willing to tell me how much I am worth, when they are telling me how much I am costing them, and hence, how much I OWE THEM. But they aren't willing to put it in writing, at least not as far as a tax preparation expert such as yourself can see. That particular contractual obligation, between employee and employer, is not reflected on my stubs.

'Employee contributions' are only one part of the contract wages. Only one part of the employment contract is reported to employees on the stubs, whether the contributions are to unemployment funds or medical insurance funds, or FICA, or Medicare, or retirement pension, or Social Security, etc. But my union sisters and brothers make two figures in dollars per hour, in terms of benefits, that are not on our pay stubs. And we make two figures in dollars per hour on our pay checks, where the pay stubs come from. The deductions by employer companies, that are shown as entries for 'unemployment funds' on pay stubs -- those deductions represent only part of the total compensation package that my employment contract secures for me, (thanks to my union).

You discussed unemployment as a 'Federal Program' in another post on this thread, but the diverse United states individually administer the federal unemployment program, and are entitled to levy taxes for it.

As you pointed out, the 'matching' concept comes with FICA and Medicare. The same holds true for pensions, SS, profit-sharing, &tc. In this context, all that the term 'matching' means is that some of the money comes from our employee gross wages, and some of the money comes from the employer as part of our contractually-mandated compensation. That means I worked for it, and the employers OWE IT TO ME, though it isn't on my stubs. And there are non-matched funds that are part of our total compensation per hour, that are not listed on tax documents as 'wages', but they OWE it to ME.

That employer-contribution part of our compensation, in either Unemployment or Medical Insurance, is not reflected on the pay stubs issued from the company to the employee, for the purposes of taxation. The same goes for FICA, Medicare, Social Security, etc. Both the 'employee' and 'employer' portions of our compensation come from our task of 'making the employers money' every hour, whether we can deduct it or not. Did I earn my medical plan, according to your rationale? (If not, please tell the Feds I'm not worth that much per hour to insure.) No matter, I surely earned my unemployment.

By the way, it isn't 'wit', it is 'whit'. Maybe you meant it matters not a 'bit'. and I think whit and bit are both Chaucer-era Middle English, early Anglo-Saxon shyte, like might have come from the Wife of Bath in Canterbury Tales. Regardless, L O love.

[I Have A Dream]

4. I say let the Right make this the fight.

There are enough right-wing Americans out of jobs that maybe it will let them see that there really is a place for the government helping people who are down and out. I don't like the first argument (even if employees did pay towards this) because it takes away from the argument that sometimes we as a society just need to help people who are hurting.

I won't hold my breath, but maybe a few conservatives who have lost their jobs will be more empathetic towards others in the future because unemployment insurance helped them during their own difficult time.

[Parche]

5. GOP=Corporate Welfare

that is all...:hi:

[glen123098]

7. unemployment is simply insurance.

Every company pays into to so the unlucky individuals who do become unemployed have money when it happens. It works the same as health insurance. Thats not welfare.

[PRockGirlScout]

8. Welfare

Woah. Why do you mention "brown" Americans in the context of welfare?

[1776Forever]

10. Yes - Why? I caught that too - Seems welfare = brown americans - not. n/t

[TheDebbieDee]

11. I mention brown Americans because the goopers are trying

equate unemployment with the welfare myth by implying that mostly Americans of non-European descent are filling the welfare/unemployment rolls. That's why the goopers have been obstructing the passage of the latest unemployment extension. They're trying to "prove" to their constituents that they can stop the unemployment "handouts".

The goopers want conservative voters to think they're only hurting brown people by not extending unemployment benefits, but the fact is that the goopers are hurting just as many white people as brown people.

[PRockGirlScout]

12. Ridiculous

The race of the people on unemployment is completely irrelevant. Even if they were ALL minorities, it shouldn't matter. IMO, if that were true, it would only serve to show that as most labor experts have feared, discrimination runs rampant during times of economic distress.

[TheDebbieDee]

14. Tell that to the goopers whose major motivation seems to be

do whatever is possible to dick over those of us not of European descent!

[tilsammans]

18. The first time I was unemployed back in 1982 . . .

. . . a couple of people remarked that I'd "be down there in line with all the (insert racial/ethnic slurs here)." (I'm Caucasian.)

:grr:

Yet every time I went, virtually everyone there in line with me was of similar ethnic origin to me.

Still, even now, the stereotype persists. :grr:

[Xenotime]

19. You don't get unemployment if you quit.