{"id":1869,"date":"2010-05-11T06:37:37","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T06:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1869"},"modified":"2010-05-11T06:37:37","modified_gmt":"2010-05-11T06:37:37","slug":"something_we_need_to_rethink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1869","title":{"rendered":"Something We Need To Rethink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\" face=\"Calibri\">Monday&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/detnews.com\/article\/20100510\/BIZ\/5100335\">Detroit News<\/a> <\/font><font color=\"#000000\"><font face=\"Calibri\">posted a story entitled &#8220;Landscapers Find Workers Choosing Jobless Pay.&#8221;<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>The article explains that Michigan has the nation&#8217;s highest unemployment rate, and some of its residents are rejecting job offers in order to continue collecting unemployment.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>The landscaping industry is finding that some workers are choosing to stay home and collect unemployment rather than working (and paying the expenses involved in working&#8211;travel, gas, meals, etc.).<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\"><font face=\"Calibri\">The average landscaper earns about $ 12 per hour.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>That is a $ 480 paycheck per week.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Unemployment pays $ 255, a difference of $ 225.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>After federal and state taxes are deducted, the landscaper earns $ 350 a week&#8211;$ 95 less than the unemployment check.<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\"><font face=\"Calibri\">Statistics show that an unemployed person in Michigan collects unemployment for an average of 19.4 weeks.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Last year that average was 15 weeks.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Unemployment benefits last for up to 26 weeks.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>When state unemployment benefits run out, an unemployed person can apply for extended federal benefits that increase the total time unemployment can be collected to a maximum of 99 weeks.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>That&#8217;s almost two years!<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\"><font face=\"Calibri\">Another part of this picture is the fact that 15 percent of Michigan&#8217;s economy is underground.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>No one knows how many of the people collecting unemployment are working &#8216;under the table.&#8217;<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt\"><font color=\"#000000\"><font face=\"Calibri\">If the goal of paying unemployment is to help people financially while encouraging them to find jobs, it may be that extending unemployment benefits is counterproductive.<o:p><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday&#8217;s&nbsp;Detroit News posted a story entitled &#8220;Landscapers Find Workers Choosing Jobless Pay.&#8221;&nbsp; The article explains that Michigan has the nation&#8217;s highest unemployment rate, and some of its residents are rejecting job offers in order to continue collecting unemployment.&nbsp; The landscaping &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1869\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}