"If it wasn't for the extensions in the unemployment checks...

If the unemployment were not extended, there would be many more problems than solutions for the people who receive it. In my state, especially my city that is near Detroit, jobs are just not available. Even low-paying jobs. Very rare to find an opening anywhere. I have a friend on unemployment and he has found some work after looking for a year. Low paying bus boy position under the minimum wage. It is under the table; even so, if he paid taxes he would get a good portion back and come out ahead weekly. Michigan has depended on the auto industry for too long, and for that reason (and our wonderful Gov. Granholm who taxed other businesses right out of MI) our unemployment rate is higher than the rest of the nation. The large amount of unemployment has caused small businesses to close. Not many can afford the product. Businesses such as Avon are suffering. The sales reps from these type of companies are not making near what they did just two years ago. Many who were making a living on it no longer are. I am an Avon rep, and at the last meeting I could not believe how low the sales are for almost everyone. I agree that some do abuse the system. Some businesses are weary of hiring anyone new because they get bilked out of the unemployment money, paying someone who doesn't deserve to be paid the unemployment benefits. That hurts those who really want to work. What is the answer? I don't know, but certainly pulling the rug out from most who need the unemployment will not solve anything at this time.

I agree that for some people "fun-employment" checks coming every week or month, or whatever the schedule is, is not an incentive to get out and find a job. There are others, like my neighbor would like to be working, but cannot find a job. He shovels snow, rakes leaves, and does other odd jobs to feel like he is doing something to make some money for his family.

I have a problem with extending the unemployment. In my community many who are unemployed are so by choice. They have a part time job working for cash doing odd jobs. A plumbing contractor went out of business and his employees are working for cash and building a client base and collecting unemployment. A contractor told me that he is facing stiff competition from unemployed people who are doing home repair while collecting unemployment. When unemployment runs out they will either take a paying job or continue with their business they have started.

I am on unemployment. First time in my life. My hubby has lost "several" jobs in the recent past.He does not qualify for unemployment. He took early Social Security to give us a partial income base. I did leave a job, a year ago, for medical reasons. I have worked three jobs since then, and am on "temporary layoff" from one. I do not think it will ever come back. While I am on unemployment, I am paying things off and down as rapidly as possible, because I do not expect the benefits to be extended. The money I receive is going back into the economy, that is all I really know. I am about to take a part time job, and a big pay cut from what unemployment has paid me. I have to buy new work clothes for this job. I could not do it without the unemployment I am receiving. I have no family who can help us out. For the most of the last fourteen years I have worked two jobs at a time. I do not know what the answer is, I am so used to making my own way that I am in total shock to be receiving unemployment at all, and find it hard to believe that I might get extended benefits of any kind. I know that the economy is rotten, and is not "all better" like we have been told.

We have been without work more in the last 3 years than we have had work. and we have not taken anything from the government.We have been out everyday looking for something to do. In the summer mowing lawns, cutting down trees, turning in cans found at the side of the road. yard sale.... Ect...Ect.....now that it is winter again....shoveling snow.....and anything else we can find...We work in the construction business, and have gotten a house to do every now and then to keep us going. we have lost our cell phones, and our garbage pickup. our electric and other utilities have been shut off now and then over the last few years. we have been eating a lot of rice and beans.... their should be no more extensions for unemployment. but right now i see how they are needed. and those loans are paid back by the people that are working with their taxes. so the people that are on unemployment are being taken care of by their friends, or neighbors.

My wife and I were just discussing this today. I lost my job two weeks ago. On the very day I lost my job, I got a call for another contracted position paying 3 times what I was making. Before all the lefties start there "how lucky" b.s., I have kept my resume out there and maintain a presence on job boards in the merchandising field simply because I know the volatile and insecure nature of the work. I did this because I made a firm decision not to go on unemployment. I also had initiated contact with a couple of sites to write paid blog posts and articles...before I lost my job. Bear Bryant said it best, "Luck is preparation meeting opportunity." Those who go on unemployment were unprepared - depending on their employers to provide the security they were responsible for. Many times, the very idea that unemployment is available precludes or, shall we say "short circuits" the mind's ability to create opportunity - simply because it is easier to just fill out the paperwork. The idea of paying someone NOT to work is as reprehensible as paying farmers NOT to grow crops. It is immoral and should be illegal.

How about when we turn 18, we automatically roll onto unemployment. This can stay in effect until your old enough to collect social security. Frankly, I dont know how anybody can live with out it! (this was sarcasm by the way)

The government paying people for not working should never have started. Instead of turning to God, the church, or one's family, people are beginning to put all their trust in the government, which is a dangerous thing. The government doesn't do anything to make money. It either gets it through taxes or it borrows it. What are they going to do when the well runs dry?

In a sense, I don't have a bit of a problem with unemployment. After all, the government's money is our money - money they'll gladly take--and wish they could take more of--when a person is working. On the other side, though, I do think it needs to be managed better. I know of more than a few people who somehow manage to receive government money without even somewhat trying to seek employment. And if they do, they're sure to shoot for a job so far out of their reach that there's no way they can get it, just doing so to appear to be on the hunt. But I also know people who genuinely deserve and need the money and who try very hard to find steady work. Since they've paid in money all their working lives, I don't think for a second that they should be begging and borrowing and going the church, friends, family route. They really are "entitled" to receive some compensation, since it is government that failed them and certainly not the other way around. The very least the government can do is funnel some of the money they've paid in back to them when they need it. However, we definitely need a stricter system in place, one where it's much harder to take advantage and view the money as, like written above me, FUNemployment. Many do. I know of enough. But many do not. Just like you shouldn't logically shut down fast food because some people exercise poor choices, you shouldn't eliminate unemployment just because some people abuse the system. Weed out the morons.

Hiya Parated, Next February all Social Security Payments that are usually paid when the Unemployment has finished here will be stopped altogether. So there will be about roughly speaking a million and a half men without any kind of money at all coming in. They live in Flats the majority of them. They don´t have land where they can go and plant a few lettuces and other vegetables. So they will have to rely on other Families and Parents who do not get paid enough as it is. I don´t know where it will en either or begin as the only way you can get to do a course is doing what they want you to do so as you get paid for it. At this moment in time this is the way it stands. By the way this is Spain I am talking about.

I agree that there are some who legitimately can't find a job but for every one of those, there are two that could, but won't as long as they can sit back and get paid for doing nothing. I know people personally that do that very thing. They look for jobs but don't take them because they only pay the same or just a little more than unemployment so they figure, why bother to work, just sit back and milk the system as long as they can. Unemployment was designed as a stop gap measure only. It is supposed to help you while you are finding another job, not be a source of income for months on end. Unemployment, in theory, is a noble and compassionate idea. Help people get through their time of need. In reality, it is a disincentive for people taking another job. I knew a girl who got laid off from an auto company years ago. She went on unemployment. When it ran out, she filed for an extension. When that finally ran out and she couldn't get any more government money, she miraculously found a job. Only when she was faced with having no income at all did she take a job. I know two people right now who are out of work and neither one will take a job if it doesn't pay as much as their old job. They could find work but they won't take it because they'd be working for less than they used to. Both are living off of their wife's income and drawing unemployment. I guarantee that if unemployment ended, a large portion of the unemployed would find some type of work.

But unemployment extensions make it so they don't have to turn to alternative resources for living (friends, family, churches, other organizations). That's a feature, not a bug. It's a feature because friends, family, churches, other organizations? They're barely hanging on themselves -- assuming friends and family aren't also out there pounding the pavement. Here in NYC, food banks are out of food and turning people away because so many people can't afford to feed themselves and so many more can afford to feed themselves only because they can't afford to give to a food bank.

oh god