I want to start off by saying this: I am sympathetic to those that have been laid off and are living off of unemployment. I have been laid off once or twice in the past few years, and yes, it is not fun. Granted, the first time lasted only a month; the second time only a week. But still, I understand the plight of the unemployed.With that said, by the time a month had passed (during my first lay off period), I was more than ready to start looking for work. I was at the point where I was pulling the hair out of my head, and I was ready to start putting in applications at McDonald's, Burger King, whatever it took to start earning a paycheck again.
Part of the legislation that is sitting around, waiting to be voted on, is a plan to cut Indiana unemployment benefits by 25%. I understand the reason's for such a cut. Currently, unemployment is paying out significantly more than it is paying in. In order to keep unemployment from drying up like an Egyptian watering hole, Daniels and other Indiana Republicans want to cut unemployment's pay out by 25%, while simultaneously increasing the amount that employers pay into this pool. Smart idea, really. In order to keep the possibility of NOBODY having unemployment from becoming a reality, steps are being taken to remedy the situation before it gets out of hand.
Here is my issue with this.
Unemployment's level of payout is, currently, at that "awkward" level; it pays too much to make taking a minimum wage job, yet pays too little to really pay the bills. However, for those workers that have been paying into this for years and years and are recently being laid off, they are getting the shaft. There are a lot of people that have been milking unemployment for quite some time now; they should, by all means, be downgraded to the -25% level, because lets face it, unemployment isn't supposed to last forever. However, those that are just recently collecting on that are not to be blamed for the short fall. After all, they have been contributing.
So, what to do, you may ask.
I propose a sliding scale. Those that are on or will be on unemployment in the near future should have the benefit of getting back a little of what they have been paying into. Lets throw out the number 4 months. After that amount of time (or some other amount, that number is really just the amount of time it would take me to go bat crap crazy with out working) that number would go to -15% of the original amount, and a few months after that it would drop to the -25% of the original amount that was originally proposed.
This way, the cuts (that are very much needed) are still be imposed, while respecting the fact that those that have been paying for a good long while and have not been a drain on the system are not to blame for the current problems in funding. People would, all around, I think, be more supportive of the cuts, and the deficit would still be taken care of.
Thoughts?
