Funemployment? July 22, 2010

Obviously, I have been working too hard.  I just heard the term “funemployment” for the first time.  You can go here or here to learn as much as you should need to know about this phenomenon.

Yes, the picture painted by Great Leader is:  struggling families … whose breadwinner(s) … just … can’t … find … a new job.  Anywhere!  Sob.  Doing anything!  Sob.  So, you see … they need an extension of those all-important unemployment benefits. Sob.

This is a word picture drawn for the sycophants in the parrot press.  It is a caricature.  Demagoguery. “Funemplyment” suggests that it is only part of the story.

Sure, if folks want to be “funemployed” on their own dime then what do I care?  I don’t.  Enjoy.  Have fun!  Really!  Learn to paint with your toes.  Take up the bongos and bad poetry.  Or maybe folks have a “package” from their former employer.  Cool.  Party down, dude.  Heck, as a child of the 60′s, I understand the desire to “stop and smell the roses”.  Ol’ Maynard G. Krebs has nothing on you!

And, yes, I know that working at finding a new job is a huge pain.  Even the best job hunting advice (e.g. What Color is Your Parachute) recommends that 6 hours a day is about all anybody can do.

If you are spending 6 hours a day on your job search then push back from the desk, pat yourself on the back for a worthy effort and, sure, let the fun begin.

But.

If folks are collecting unemployment insurance payments and not actively seeking work then their “fun” is at the expense of others.  Well, such low lifes are free-loading scum suckers.  Which, before we entered this  interminable Age of Slacking, was considered to be a bad thing.  Now, I expect great pride is taken in this.

Unemployment is not a benefit like workers compensation (pays you when you get hurt on the job).  The former is (supposed to be) a safety net to ease the temporary (as in “as short as possible”) pain of being unemployed.  It is paid for by a tax on … drum roll … payrolls.  It raises the cost of doing business for anybody who employs anybody.

Recall that if you tax something then you get less of it and if you subsidize something then you get more of it.  So … what does that say about a policy that taxes payrolls to subsidize unemployment? I’ll wait while you do the math …

“Funemployment” is the best argument ever made against extending unemployment benefits.