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A lot of the "advice" being given may apply to a young person who can live with their parents or live in a studio apartment and eat ramen noodles and boxed mac n cheese everyday. It does NOT apply to a 40/50 something with a home, a car payment, and two kids to support who has a master's degree and who, until the past year, was gainfully employed for more than 20 years in their profession in a state where the unemployment rate is 14.9%. The military doesn't take asthmatics who have vertigo and high blood pressure. What would one do with their teenagers while they were in basic training, even if they did? When you work jobs like cleaning houses, etc, there are no benefits, hence, no health insurance, so when your child gets sicks, it costs more than a week's pay to get them in to see a doctor. Going back to school costs money. So now, in addition to the mortgage, car payment, food and kids' needs, you have to come up with money for tuition? Neat trick. For what it's worth, my department is hiring the following in the near future: phlebotomists experienced with drawing blood on kids and infants at about $10/hr, epidemiologists (masters or PhD with grant funding in place or pending), biostatisticians (Masters or PhD, recent grads welcome), and an experienced .NET web programmer. You could learn phlebotomy in the 26 weeks that you get unemployment, sure. The rest take YEARS of schooling.
We ARE in a crisis. I don't think anybody is saying that people should just be paid unemployment forever. However, until we pull out of this recession, the humane thing to do is to help people until they can get back on their feet. The number of people who show up at my door to see if I will pay them to shovel my snow each time we get a snow fall is incredible. I see people trying to do anything they can each and every day. There will always be some people who use and abuse the system, but this situation right now, today, is the worst it has been since the depression. Charities are overwhelmed, animal shelters are overwhelmed, small businesses are closing right and left. It's a crisis situation and there are NOT enough jobs for everybody who wants one.
Many of us who ARE employed have lost retirement matching, vacation time, have had no pay increases for a couple years now or have experienced pay cuts. Many who are NOT unemployed have had their hours cut. The amount of money available to spend on services has diminished. The things people cut out first are the luxuries: paying somebody to clean their house or shovel their snow, going out to eat, getting their nails done or their hair dyed, purchasing anything other than necessities, elective medical procedures, etc. This trickles down through the whole economy. When your unemployment rate increases to 15%, your tax base erodes leading to cuts in education (usually in the form of teacher layoffs), public servants, scholarship money, etc. It trickles further and further into every facet of our society.
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