MisJif's Soapbox

Unemployment

Have you tried to get YOUR unemployment recently?

If not let me tell you what we encountered....

My husband has paid into unemployment 42 years. There had been months, when we were in our 20's, that he applied for unemployment when laid off due to the weather. As we have gotten older he has not had to sign up for unemployment in more years than I care to remember.

Right before the Christmas holidays in 2005 my husband was laid off due to bad weather conditions so he applied for unemployment. According to their paperwork he had paid in $14,000.00 in 2005.

The Unemployment office in our state first said they might deny us benefits (why do they call it benefits-it's his money, he worked for it), they tell you that it is mandatory that you be actively seeking a job...why? Didn't we pay into it so that we be assured of having a little income while he was 'temporarily' laid off? What if he wants to be a couch potato for a few weeks?

Then to top it off they send a letter that it is 'mandatory' that he attend classes to learn how to job search? You have got to be kidding? The guy has been working since he was 16 years old and I doubt the states unemployment office knows more about 'job searching' than my husband does!!

Now here is the big question? If my husband paid in $14,000.00 (of which he collected a total of $170.00 before returning to work a week or so later), what happens to all that money that he paid in? Where is it going? Who's spending it?

Multiply that by the millions of men working for a living and paying into Unemployment that is a lot of money?