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comment by rob05c
rob05c  ·  3213 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: It Just Makes Common Sense

    Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine

Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in every state in the US. None of them pay enough to survive, or have regular hours.

So essentially, Maine has required government aid receivers to get jobs which can't sustain them without government aid.

There exist requirements which would actually move people to self-sufficiency. For example, requiring attendance and good grades at a community college or trade school.

    Workfare programs provide training, job readiness preparation, and employment search services that help to connect recipients to jobs.

Learning to write a resumé doesn't help you get a living-wage job. Getting a welding certification helps you get a living-wage job.

    These services help recipients to increase their skills and to find and obtain employment, thereby speeding the transition from welfare to work.

Let's see a study proving that. Ideally double-blind by an unbiased source.

    Caseworkers in Maine note that the drop-off appears to be due to individuals who have chosen to forgo food stamp benefits rather than fulfill the work requirement.

There's the crux. They didn't start working, much less become self-sufficient and get out of poverty. They just started going hungry. Success?





hootsbox  ·  3209 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So, if you read, there is also an option for community service (like painting the buildings supplied for you or subsidized for you at taxpayer expense). That would, at least, provide a value to you and the property. This, I guess by the Maine caseworkers, is not good enough or too tough?

I would like to see some pilots run that allow men, who impregnate women, to actually marry or be together and receive benefits, thereby actually encouaging , to a larger degree, family formation, and the requirements learn a skilled trade, go to community college, or work. We would, for a generation or two, have to subsidize child care ( which is done now), and provide mentoring programs through civic and religious volunteers, to provide life skills like budgeting, planning, relationship, and other crtical skills. This would be an improvement over the current "keep you in poverty" designed programs the FEDS have designed. They are designed to keep you dependent not free you from it.

kleinbl00  ·  3213 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I can only speak for California and Washington, but in those two states you forfeit unemployment for any week you:

A) undetake any schooling or training

B) do any free work

C) report any illness

D) report for jury duty

You also forfeit if you don't list the three new people you contacted looking for work (unless you're union, in which case "fuck you, I'm on the available for work list" suffices). So. Don't get sick, don't do an internship, don't volunteer, don't improve your skills or we'll revoke your money that you paid into the system during better times. "

The extent to which conservatives will go to discourage "freeloaders" is appalling.

hootsbox  ·  2370 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Misguided, but all too typical, California ruling (formulated by mostly Democrat state legislators)

kleinbl00  ·  2370 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Do you seriously think any other state is different?

tacocat  ·  2370 days ago  ·  link  ·  

In Georgia I was denied unemployment after a lay off because they went back six months to look at my work history, skipping over the six months of steady work history I had. What was I doing before I started to work? Going to school

hootsbox  ·  3209 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Stupid governmental designed rules there, just like welfare rules at the federal level.