State of MI Unemployment Ins. Fraud Computer Sys Had 70% Error Rate

[emu steve]

Here is a discussion of the Social Security Trust Fund by Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social...it...rust_Fund

Indeed, the trust fund had a balance of 2.79T as of 2014.

"The asset reserves of the combined OASDI Trust Funds increased by $25 billion in 2014 to a total of $2.79 trillion."

EDIT: How can a system which has collected and paid out benefits for over 75 years successfully without monies from the general fund be a ponzi scheme?

It sounds like the best insurance or annuity plan devised by man to me.

[archfan]

Dignity is not relevant to fixing the situation of being unemployed. Family and friends should provide the hugs. The unemployment system should only be there to assist an individual in correcting the employment issue, and insisting on personal responsibility, hard work, self-improvement and a little demonstration of gratitude during that time would lead to fewer people needing unemployment, and for shorter periods of time.

I'll go along with the first half of your last sentence. The second half would just be you wanting to impose your moral beliefs. It's no better than making them say a prayer.

[Oddz313]

Dignity is not relevant to fixing the situation of being unemployed. Family and friends should provide the hugs. The unemployment system should only be there to assist an individual in correcting the employment issue, and insisting on personal responsibility, hard work, self-improvement and a little demonstration of gratitude during that time would lead to fewer people needing unemployment, and for shorter periods of time.

We can all be happy that an idiot like you is not running this operation, bad enough that the nerd AKA Gov bottom line has been running the operation while reducing the weeks from 26 to 20 and charging people w fraud. Of course it might be better than drinking flint water.
1st of all trying to regulate people smoking cigs or drinking while on unemployment is going to be real big government, probably cost more to catch them based on your little culture war/crusade than anything.
2nd if you work for a seasonal employer or own such a company you pay into the insurance for when the season ends or you can't work [[a landscaper might not have much work in dry and cold February).
3rd Even a contractor at an Auto company might have shutdowns and have to claim a couple weeks a year or maybe more. They pay into it all year as well.
4th in a big recession where people might be out of work for a year it might be the only thing that stops someone from turning to crime to feed themselves, of course you getting shot in a botched robbery might be entertaining for me to see personally, it still wouldn't make for a good society.
I could probably go on and on with your asinine comments.

[emu steve]

Mikey,

If you want a better target to criticize than Social Security which has survived and thrived for over 75 years, it is Medicare.

Unlike Social Security, Medicare was a financial mess from day one. The financing never made sense and there was never a chance of it being financially solvent [[revenues = expenditures). The premiums, fees, etc. are no where near sufficient to cover the health care cost of a cohort [[65+ plus disabled) which would be expected to incur very high medical costs late in their lives.

Assuming good faith by the authors of Medicare, I doubt they expected that say 50 years later we could [[and would) be spending maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars keeping someone alive who would have not survived or thrived back then.

This is also the problem VA is having. Soldiers who would have died during say the Vietnam war are now [[Iraq and Afghanistan) surviving and thriving at great expense. Think of TBI. In the 1990s, VA was an agency which was shrinking as Vietnam era vets were still young and we had not had a mass causality war in two decades. In the last dozen plus years VA's budget has skyrocketed.

In short, the problem is Medicare, Medicaid, VA medical care expenses, etc. and not Social Security.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

emu steve, I have no argument with any of your valid criticism of the government's financial and medical blunders on a grand scale know as Medicaid, Medicare and the VA. But your information on social security is genuinely inaccurate. Below are posted both a Forbes analysis of Social Security's current and long term financial distress [[and yes, it is already bleeding billions a year from the general fund), and a Social Security Administration admission of the system's structural inadequacy. As I posted before, the "surviving and thriving" of SS is a myth built on ignoring the fact that population demographics hid the problems from most people for generations. It is like saying that your flood control measures work well when you never had any rain. There were plainly many more workers to retirees in the early years. But that gradual change became dramatic when the Baby Boom began to retire. There is no real fix if the current system is maintained. Raising retirement age would help, but it wouldn't solve it. SS will consume an ever larger amount of the federal budget in the coming years. "Non-discretionary" spending is already the majority of federal spending. There will probably need to be a full, systemic collapse prior to political will emerging to address the situation.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/...v70n3p111.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin.../#37e2cde32c51

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

oddz313

In your point #1, you label asking that taxpayers not fund certain self-destructive behaviors as a "culture war." If that is true, consider me a culture warrior. While I am fairly libertarian [[I don't favor outlawing the things I am opposed to), I do not favor having to pay for them. Temporary unemployment benefits should exist for to help people put a little food on the table and avoid eviction. You wanna drink, smoke, play the lottery? Be my guest. Pay your own way.

Your points 2-4 ignore that I have repeatedly stated in this thread that I do favor unemployment benefits. There are situations where they are good and appropriate. My objections to the current system structure are the real and substantial abuse of the system, and the lack of a personal responsibility component to receiving benefits. I guess that is just my crazy, cruel right wing rage coming out.

[emu steve]

Couple of points, Mikey:

1). I hate statements like this: "A fairer way to describe what is going on: Fica [[Federal Insurance Contributions Act) taxes are running $68 billion short and the government is covering that out of general revenue." That statement is, at best, half true. Yes, the general fund is the DEBTOR to the Soc. Sec. trust fund. No different than if I have GM bonds and rely on the bond payments [[interest) to balance my monthly budget. I really wouldn't care if my income came from Social Security or interest on corporate bonds I might hold. I'm entitled to payment from both. Pay up, GM.

2nd, I remember all of the actuarial estimates done during the MIDST of the Great Recession. In those days, ALL forecasts were ominous.

Happily the economy improves each year and I suspect the Social Security Trust fund prospects improves each year as we get further and further from the Great Recession.

And remember, we are in the midst of the Baby Boomer retirement wave. The oldest Baby Boomers are 72 [[?). By 2034, when some think Soc. Sec. will go bust, by then many/most Baby Boomers will be deceased [[oldest will be approach 90) and the millennials will be paying in big bucks into the system as they are at peak earnings.

[Wesley Mouch]

...snip...
1st of all trying to regulate people smoking cigs or drinking while on unemployment is going to be real big government, probably cost more to catch them based on your little culture war/crusade than anything.

Funny how the left likes war on soda, Big Mac's, cigarettes and drinking -- except when it involves social welfare, when protecting self-destructive activities becomes a culture war
...

4th in a big recession where people might be out of work for a year it might be the only thing that stops someone from turning to crime to feed themselves, of course you getting shot in a botched robbery might be entertaining for me to see personally, it still wouldn't make for a good society.
...

We might suggest their local church, [[or say the Capuchin Soup kitchen) as another 'thing' that could 'stop them from turning to crime'.

Your opinion of those who have lost their job is pretty low if you think crime is their first fallback plan.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Wes I couldn't agree more, especially with the notion that the activist left thinks terribly low of the poor. I don't believe people are weak, helpless animals that need me to run their lives for them. Not only do they not offer a real hand up to the poor, they are busy using that hand to keep the door closed and locked.

[archfan]

Wes I couldn't agree more, especially with the notion that the activist left thinks terribly low of the poor. I don't believe people are weak, helpless animals that need me to run their lives for them. Not only do they not offer a real hand up to the poor, they are busy using that hand to keep the door closed and locked.

They don't need you to run their lives, except they can't drink or smoke while they're on unemployment. And you think the left thinks terribly low of the poor, yet you would force them to endure public shaming to get unemployment benefits. Those are very contradictory positions.

[Oddz313]

Funny how the left likes war on soda, Big Mac's, cigarettes and drinking -- except when it involves social welfare, when protecting self-destructive activities becomes a culture war
...

We might suggest their local church, [[or say the Capuchin Soup kitchen) as another 'thing' that could 'stop them from turning to crime'.

Your opinion of those who have lost their job is pretty low if you think crime is their first fallback plan.

Eat is the same thing as being able to pay bills and have shelter in a down turn, I guess that concept floated over your head though

[Bham1982]

Funny how the left likes war on soda, Big Mac's, cigarettes and drinking -- except when it involves social welfare, when protecting self-destructive activities becomes a culture war
...

Yes, because smoking is the exact same thing as child care, education, nutritious food and healthcare...

We might suggest their local church, [[or say the Capuchin Soup kitchen) as another 'thing' that could 'stop them from turning to crime'.

Civilized societies have protections for the least among them. Bizarre that so many Americans, whose families are prosperous because of such protections, now find this controversial.

[aj3647]

That all being true, unemployment is widely abused even where the law is obeyed. Many people [[and I am speaking directly of people I have known) apply for and get unemployment while at least one of the following is true:

So you are personally aware of people committing unemployment benefits fraud and you aren't reporting them? Then you're part of the problem.

-required to work 20 hours of community service per week [[daycare & transportation assistance should be available if needed), working outside wearing bright pink t-shirts or jackets that say THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING ME WHILE I LOOK FOR WORK.

1) So the taxpayer should pay MORE [[cost of daycare alone would be huge) just to shame these people?
2) Do you want these people out picking up trash on the side of the highways or do you want them to spend their time job hunting, applying for jobs, going on interviews, working on their resumes, etc?

Your ideas are not only bad, they are counterproductive for the very goal you are hoping to achieve [[fewer people on unemployment). Also, you seem to have a hard-on for wanting to publicly shame these people. Ask the workers at Joe's Crab Shack in Ann Arbor who just got laid off with very little notice and through no fault of their own if they deserve to be publicly embarrassed and shamed if they need to collect unemployment benefits for a few weeks while they scramble to find new jobs. But yeah, let's all point and laugh at them for being leeches, because that's what they need right now. You are devoid of empathy.

[Honky Tonk]

Do you want these people out picking up trash on the side of the highways or do you want them to spend their time job hunting, applying for jobs, going on interviews, working on their resumes, etc?

Actually either would work for me. What I don't want is "these people" drinking, smoking, drugging, sleeping in late, and generally scamming the system, because they looked in the bathroom cupboard this morning and couldn't find a job.

So you are personally aware of people committing unemployment benefits fraud?

Oh hell yes I do.....

and you aren't reporting them? Then you're part of the problem.

Thanx, Dad....

[Oddz313]

Actually either would work for me. What I don't want is "these people" drinking, smoking, drugging, sleeping in late, and generally scamming the system, because they looked in the bathroom cupboard this morning and couldn't find a job.

So you are personally aware of people committing unemployment benefits fraud?

Oh hell yes I do.....

and you aren't reporting them? Then you're part of the problem.

Thanx, Dad....

Well they are supposed to apply to 3 jobs a week and send in the documentation online. The last part is an old adage from the 80s until now about the welfare queen where you get these stories about people on assistance living high on the hog but then when someone asks who? It goes silent

[Meddle]

Well they are supposed to apply to 3 jobs a week and send in the documentation online.

When I stopped working 7 years ago, I knew I would probably never work again. I should have been entitled to UI based on my history and reasons for leaving. The employer contested and I began the appeals process. Then I saw the 'search for work requirement' and decided not to pursue the appeal. This area is very, very short on jobs even today, much more so seven years ago. Searching would have been an effort in futility as there was literally NOTHING available for my age group within a 40-50 mile radius that wouldn't have require long commutes and travel costs that could have equaled a weekly pay check.

I chose to simply wait it out and survive on what savings I had until my very small pension kicked in a few months later. I still live on that until SS kicks in. I'm on a couple of other programs but our job market is so small that none of the other work requirements apply to people of my age group in our area. There simply is NO work for many people, even if they're able and willing.

[Wesley Mouch]

2) Do you want these people out picking up trash on the side of the highways or do you want them to spend their time job hunting, applying for jobs, going on interviews, working on their resumes, etc?

Your ideas are not only bad, they are counterproductive for the very goal you are hoping to achieve [[fewer people on unemployment). Also, you seem to have a hard-on for wanting to publicly shame these people. Ask the workers at Joe's Crab Shack in Ann Arbor who just got laid off with very little notice and through no fault of their own if they deserve to be publicly embarrassed and shamed if they need to collect unemployment benefits for a few weeks while they scramble to find new jobs. But yeah, let's all point and laugh at them for being leeches, because that's what they need right now. You are devoid of empathy.

Why is performing a public service, otherwise done by unionized public employees considered a 'public embarrassment and shaming'?

Is contributing to your society not socially progressive?

[aj3647]

Why is performing a public service, otherwise done by unionized public employees considered a 'public embarrassment and shaming'?

Is contributing to your society not socially progressive?

Did you miss the part where he wanted to force them to wear bright pink t-shirts with a big embarrassing message emblazoned on the front while they do it? These people are not criminals, why do you want to strip them of their dignity as if they were? What's the purpose of making them wear pink shirts with shaming messages on the front if not to embarrass them publicly?

So you are personally aware of people committing unemployment benefits fraud?

Oh hell yes I do.....

and you aren't reporting them? Then you're part of the problem.

Thanx, Dad....

That's the laziest way I've ever seen someone justify their own inaction. If you can't be bothered to report it [[which is really the only way the state can find out about it), then it must not bother you too much so stop complaining about it.

[Honky Tonk]

Did you miss the part where he wanted to force them to wear bright pink t-shirts with a big embarrassing message emblazoned on the front while they do it? These people are not criminals, why do you want to strip them of their dignity as if they were? What's the purpose of making them wear pink shirts with shaming messages on the front if not to embarrass them publicly?



That's the laziest way I've ever seen someone justify their own inaction. If you can't be bothered to report it [[which is really the only way the state can find out about it), then it must not bother you too much so stop complaining about it.

Oh come on, the laziest way is to sit on a forum all day and yell @ people all day pretending you're doing something.

[Meddle]

Why is performing a public service, otherwise done by unionized public employees considered a 'public embarrassment and shaming'?

You don't think the Unions might have a problem with that?

[Wesley Mouch]

You don't think the Unions might have a problem with that [[cleaning up streets)?

Union's problems with something should not be an obstacle to progress. The question is whether something is good policy, not whether there are entrenched interests who will fight it.