Half of pandemic unemployment money may have been stolen: report

[Fried_shrimp]

LOL ! "US at it's height"
yeah, The US has been on a downward spiral after 1909

I would say 1932 but my date and yours isn't that far apart.

 

[slip]

LOL ! "US at it's height"
yeah, The US has been on a downward spiral after 1909

Why 1909?

 

[Brett]

I would say 1932 but my date and yours isn't that far apart.

Why 1909?

something to do with taxes and "war of northern aggression"

 

[slip]

something to do with taxes and "war of northern aggression"

I don’t remember anything with the War of Northern aggression and specifically 1909? Of course 1909 had the tax act.

 

[mdurette]

I think the help that the government provided was needed. But, I think it was all put together so fast that they didn't think it through enough and left a lot of open loopholes for abuse. I have seen it first hand. Just not enough checks and balances in the system that was set up.

 

[am1]

Then who would serve/prepare you your food when you dine out, be it at a fancy restaurant or lowly McDonalds? Who would give you your pedicure? Who would cut your grass. lay down your mulch, plow your snow? Who would pick up your trash? Who would do these jobs that do not provide a living wage?

Seems to me it is easy to talk the talk without having walked the walk of a fellow human being in less fortunate circumstances.

If one has the right skills they can still cut grass, pedicures, serve/cook food for more then minimum wage. Minimum wages should be based off of unemployment levels. In an ideal world very few are being paid minimum wage and everyone would put effort in to the average wage increasing. what if there was no minimum wage and people were paid what they are worth.

 

[beejaybeeohio]

If one has the right skills they can still cut grass, pedicures, serve/cook food for more then minimum wage. Minimum wages should be based off of unemployment levels. In an ideal world very few are being paid minimum wage and everyone would put effort in to the average wage increasing. what if there was no minimum wage and people were paid what they are worth.

The problem with people being paid what their jobs (not they themselves, unless you believe that some humans are more worthy than others) are worth is that the employer is the decision maker in that scenario.
The pandemic shutdowns indicated the importance of jobs that many consider to be low level- truckers, grocery store workers, "Amazon" employees, etc. Has Bezos increased the wages of his workers? Likely not, because his profit is what seems to matter most to him.
At least minimum wage laws provide for some financial predictability. Recall that many Walmart workers qualified for food stamps. Sadly, many Walmart jobs near us are being eliminated since stores are moving to all self-serve checkouts. Where do the folks who had these positions find similar employment?

 

[amycurl]

Tipping is a remnant of slavery, and, as such, should be done away with as much as possible.


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[am1]

The problem with people being paid what their jobs (not they themselves, unless you believe that some humans are more worthy than others) are worth is that the employer is the decision maker in that scenario.
The pandemic shutdowns indicated the importance of jobs that many consider to be low level- truckers, grocery store workers, "Amazon" employees, etc. Has Bezos increased the wages of his workers? Likely not, because his profit is what seems to matter most to him.
At least minimum wage laws provide for some financial predictability. Recall that many Walmart workers qualified for food stamps. Sadly, many Walmart jobs near us are being eliminated since stores are moving to all self-serve checkouts. Where do the folks who had these positions find similar employment?

yes what there labour is worth. With a minimum wage I feel it hurts good workers in those jobs more then it helps. It allows less skilled workers in those positions to skate by and holds them back as they see no incentive to improve. I feels the same about unions. A great teacher is going to get paid the same as a bad teacher.

 

[Tia]

I'm not sure the debt hasn't affected me or won't in the future. Maybe the fed can issue me a million of that money?

I don't agree.

Taxpayers will never pay, it's money issued by the fed that only adds to the trillions of dollars of debt that hasn't affected anybody yet.

 

[bogey21]

Tipping is a remnant of slavery, and, as such, should be done away with as much as possible.

When my Daughter waited tables while in college I recall her saying she preferred working for tips because she earned multiples of what she could make if she was paid by the hour...

George

 

[bbodb1]

I don’t remember anything with the War of Northern aggression and specifically 1909? Of course 1909 had the tax act.

Well, look at the color of the sky in Brett's world.

 

[Fried_shrimp]

I'm a taxpayer and don't consider myself getting screwed at all by the enhanced unemployment benefits that were implemented to relieve the impact of COVID. The supplemental portion is temporary, and it's not the only thing that's keeping workers from returning to their jobs. Many, many parents of minors faced the closure of their daycare facilities and in many cases a requirement to pay the price for the duration or lose the spots when the facilities re-opened. Parents of school-age children were forced to leave jobs because they had no way of getting or paying for daycare to supervise their children during mandated remote learning. That's just one of the segments of society that had no choice but to collect unemployment. Food service workers are coming to terms with the fact that their wages are simply not living wages, so are rethinking their career choices. That's another segment. There are thousands across the country whose livelihoods have been forever changed due to COVID and it is not as simple as a temporary unemployment supplement being handed to them.

"As usual we taxpayers are the ones getting screwed" is such a demeaning thing to say about those suffering COVID's economic impacts to the extent that they were forced to collect unemployment, so degrading to those who've been forced to compare and contrast the realities of either staying on the rolls knowing that others don't hesitate to insult them for it, or, returning to a job that doesn't pay a living wage. You may as well just come right out and tell them how worthless they are and literally - as opposed to figuratively - kick them while they're down.

What is more demeaning is that you think you speak for everyone and your opinion is the only one there is. I AM getting screwed as I AM being taxed more to cover this nonsense. I couldn't care less whether you don't care that your tax dollars are being wasted but I do certainly care and if I could, I would vote someone in who would abolish every single social program known to mankind in this country. If a person cannot figure out how to support themselves then they don't deserve the life they have been given.

 

[Brett]

What is more demeaning is that you think you speak for everyone and your opinion is the only one there is. I AM getting screwed as I AM being taxed more to cover this nonsense. I couldn't care less whether you don't care that your tax dollars are being wasted but I do certainly care and if I could, I would vote someone in who would abolish every single social program known to mankind in this country. If a person cannot figure out how to support themselves then they don't deserve the life they have been given.

the people that "don't deserve the life they have been given" .....

 

[beejaybeeohio]

After reading the latest posts from a certain crustacean, I would love to reply but don't have the words that would soften that person's heart.

 

[SueDonJ]

What is more demeaning is that you think you speak for everyone and your opinion is the only one there is. I AM getting screwed as I AM being taxed more to cover this nonsense. I couldn't care less whether you don't care that your tax dollars are being wasted but I do certainly care and if I could, I would vote someone in who would abolish every single social program known to mankind in this country. If a person cannot figure out how to support themselves then they don't deserve the life they have been given.

I haven't ever said that my opinion is the only one that counts, and neither have I EVER presumed to say that another human being doesn't, "deserve the life they have been given." Wow! That is harsh.

You might want to tone it down - it's never a good thing to advertise for all the world the darkest recesses of your soul.

 

[Fried_shrimp]

I haven't ever said that my opinion is the only one that counts, and neither have I EVER presumed to say that another human being doesn't, "deserve the life they have been given." Wow! That is harsh.

You might want to tone it down - it's never a good thing to advertise for all the world the darkest recesses of your soul.

So I'm guessing feelings matter more to you than honesty. Sorry but I prefer honesty. And I honestly couldn't care less what someone thinks of my and will do everything legally within my power to keep others out of my wallet.

 

[SueDonJ]

You know, whenever I hear people rant and rage against social programs and using taxes to fund them, I try to think for at least a minute how fortunate they are to have probably never had the need to rely on them. And sometimes when the discussions take dark turns, it takes me many, many more minutes to beat down deep inside me the urge to wish upon them an experience that would make them beneficiaries through no fault of their own, mostly so that they might gain an understanding.

I am a product of social programs. And I am not ashamed of it in the least.

I'm #6, the middle child in a family of 11 children. We grew up in a predominantly Irish-Catholic neighborhood in Boston in a 5BR/1BA Victorian home which was mortgaged through a local neighborhood bank. When I was 9YO the oldest of us was 15 and the youngest was 2. Our dad was a meat-cutter who had been working at the same facility since he'd come back from serving in the Korean Conflict; our mom was a stay-at-home mom. We were healthy and well cared for. We ate good thanks to the meats dad brought home from work and the large garden he tended in the backyard. We slept in our own beds, we bathed regularly, we were treated occasionally to a burger/fries from McDonald's and an ice cream cone from Howard Johnson's. We played with each other and with our friends.

But that year, the year I was 9YO, our dad was diagnosed with tuberculosis which his doctor presumed was a product of the cold and damp working conditions in the meat market. He was hospitalized for just over a year - first three months at Boston City Hospital where he had his left lung removed, then the remainder at Mattapan Chronic Disease Hospital for isolation (which is what they did with TB patients then) and rehab. He suffered COPD for the remainder of his life.

We were helped by our church, by dad's co-workers who put together and dropped off every week a box of beef/chicken/pork, by neighbors who watched over us when our mom went to visit our dad, by friends who helped get all of us to the clinic on the hospital's grounds so we could get tested for TB every month, by the local bank which forgave the principal portion of the mortgage and charged only the interest through the duration of dad's illness/recovery, by Globe Santa which is the annual toy drive for The Boston Globe, by the people who worked at mom's favorite local fabric store who dropped off yards of fabric that they called "remnants" so that mom could keep sewing our clothes, by all kinds of people. But despite all that help our lives changed and became harder, became unrecognizable in our insular world. As soon as it was determined that our dad was, clinically, "totally disabled," our mom had no choice but to go to work full-time. She couldn't do that, though, until she finished fighting - yes, fighting, because that's what you're forced to do in order to prove a need for social programs - with dad's employer to acknowledge the cause of his illness, with dad's doctors to get that cause and his "totally disabled" status written into his records, with the court because she couldn't afford an attorney and had to face a judge herself armed with those records, with a system that doesn't just hand over government aid to anyone who asks but rather forces a person to jump ridiculous hurdles that are in place only to make damned sure that the aid is necessary. Eventually mom won her battles and for a time, while it was needed, my family became beneficiaries of social aid programs - every social aid program that my mom could get her hands on! Had she not prevailed there is no doubt that we would have become foster children. During the hardest first two years of my parents' ordeal, we eleven children between the ages of 15/17 and 2/4 were saved from a family break-up that would have had to happen due to circumstances beyond our control.

So while I don't wish that everybody who thinks their money is not well-spent in aid programs would suffer as drastic a change as my family did, I don't at all feel badly about wishing that they could just for a day walk a mile in less fortunate shoes.

 

[Ken555]

If nothing else, this thread (and others like it) has reinforced my efforts to support social programs for the disadvantaged, economic and legal equality in all areas, support for easy access to voting options, and more.

I’ll be making a donation today to the ACLU in honor of our misguided Floridian, and I encourage all progressive and like minded members to do the same.


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[bluehende]

You know, whenever I hear people rant and rage against social programs and using taxes to fund them, I try to think for at least a minute how fortunate they are to have probably never had the need to rely on them. And sometimes when the discussions take dark turns, it takes me many, many more minutes to beat down deep inside me the urge to wish upon them an experience that would make them beneficiaries through no fault of their own, mostly so that they might gain an understanding.

I am a product of social programs. And I am not ashamed of it in the least.

I'm #6, the middle child in a family of 11 children. We grew up in a predominantly Irish-Catholic neighborhood in Boston in a 5BR/1BA Victorian home which was mortgaged through a local neighborhood bank. When I was 9YO the oldest of us was 15 and the youngest was 2. Our dad was a meat-cutter who had been working at the same facility since he'd come back from serving in the Korean Conflict; our mom was a stay-at-home mom. We were healthy and well cared for. We ate good thanks to the meats dad brought home from work and the large garden he tended in the backyard. We slept in our own beds, we bathed regularly, we were treated occasionally to a burger/fries from McDonald's and an ice cream cone from Howard Johnson's. We played with each other and with our friends.

But that year, the year I was 9YO, our dad was diagnosed with tuberculosis which his doctor presumed was a product of the cold and damp working conditions in the meat market. He was hospitalized for just over a year - first three months at Boston City Hospital where he had his left lung removed, then the remainder at Mattapan Chronic Disease Hospital for isolation (which is what they did with TB patients then) and rehab. He suffered COPD for the remainder of his life.

We were helped by our church, by dad's co-workers who put together and dropped off every week a box of beef/chicken/pork, by neighbors who watched over us when our mom went to visit our dad, by friends who helped get all of us to the clinic on the hospital's grounds so we could get tested for TB every month, by the local bank which forgave the principal portion of the mortgage and charged only the interest through the duration of dad's illness/recovery, by Globe Santa which is the annual toy drive for The Boston Globe, by the people who worked at mom's favorite local fabric store who dropped off yards of fabric that they called "remnants" so that mom could keep sewing our clothes, by all kinds of people. But despite all that help our lives changed and became harder, became unrecognizable in our insular world. As soon as it was determined that our dad was, clinically, "totally disabled," our mom had no choice but to go to work full-time. She couldn't do that, though, until she finished fighting - yes, fighting, because that's what you're forced to do in order to prove a need for social programs - with dad's employer to acknowledge the cause of his illness, with dad's doctors to get that cause and his "totally disabled" status written into his records, with the court because she couldn't afford an attorney and had to face a judge herself armed with those records, with a system that doesn't just hand over government aid to anyone who asks but rather forces a person to jump ridiculous hurdles that are in place only to make damned sure that the aid is necessary. Eventually mom won her battles and for a time, while it was needed, my family became beneficiaries of social aid programs - every social aid program that my mom could get her hands on! Had she not prevailed there is no doubt that we would have become foster children. During the hardest first two years of my parents' ordeal, we eleven children between the ages of 15/17 and 2/4 were saved from a family break-up that would have had to happen due to circumstances beyond our control.

So while I don't wish that everybody who thinks their money is not well-spent in aid programs would suffer as drastic a change as my family did, I don't at all feel badly about wishing that they could just for a day walk a mile in less fortunate shoes.

Thanks for sharing this story. Your mother is an extraordinary person.

 

[Fried_shrimp]

So while I don't wish that everybody who thinks their money is not well-spent in aid programs would suffer as drastic a change as my family did, I don't at all feel badly about wishing that they could just for a day walk a mile in less fortunate shoes.

The interesting thing is that you have no knowledge whatsoever of the path many here have walked but you assume they haven't at some point in time walked the path of being a less fortunate person. I'm done with this conversation and in dealing with you and your hoity toity-ness. Obviously, being that you are a moderator, for some reason, I can't officially ignore you so as to not have to read the words you type, I will skip over anything you have to say because the words you write are not worth reading, IMO.

 

[Ken555]

The interesting thing is that you have no knowledge whatsoever of the path many here have walked but you assume they haven't at some point in time walked the path of being a less fortunate person. I'm done with this conversation and in dealing with you and your hoity toity-ness. Obviously, being that you are a moderator, for some reason, I can't officially ignore you so as to not have to read the words you type, I will skip over anything you have to say because the words you write are not worth reading, IMO.

Once again, I have to ask…why are you so negative all the time? Why are you so angry? Are taxes and your money truly the most important thing in your life, to the extent it influences every decision you make and every opinion you have? Money isn’t that important: life is.


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[rapmarks]

I resent people who have money to afford things manipulating their money so the government pays for their nursing home, assisted living or whatever Then still complain about social safety nets.

 

[Yellowfin]

Once again, I have to ask…why are you so negative all the time? Why are you so angry? Are taxes and your money truly the most important thing in your life, to the extent it influences every decision you make and every opinion you have? Money isn’t that important: life is.


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People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

 

[Passepartout]

After reading the latest posts from a certain crustacean, I would love to reply but don't have the words that would soften that person's heart.

Another well deserved recipient of the 'ignore' button.