A Taste of Entitlement

Depending on what state you live in, unemployment compensation is typically 45 percent of your weekly paycheck.  When the government mandated shelter in place orders in March of this year, many people suddenly found themselves unable to go to work.  The passage of the CARES Act gave people on unemployment an extra 600 dollars a week to make up the difference for what they'd usually make in their paychecks.  Why 600 dollars?  It was deemed the quickest way to boost the vast majority of unemployment benefits to 100 percent since calculating everyone's individual weekly pay would have taken too long.  As a result of this “enhanced” unemployment, some people have wound up making a lot more money than they'd normally earn in a week.
 
I haven't been so lucky.  Since my job was deemed essential by the government, work has never been busier.  The last seven months have been a blur of 50 plus hour work weeks, 6 days a week.  I come home exhausted, eat, sleep and then go back to work with only a few hours to myself in between.  Certainly no time to blog.  In fact, things have been so busy some of the Easter decorations are still up in the house!  For a short time, my employer grudgingly gave us a “thank you” bonus with our paychecks but it didn't amount to much.  Most of us felt this was a slap in the face considering we have put ourselves in harm's way for the company.
 
The extra 600 dollars of enhanced unemployment lasted until the end of July and around that time I started to see some workers return to their old jobs.  A driver who subcontracts with us said he enjoyed his “paid vacation” and was able to finish a lot of projects around his house.  One of my favorite waitresses told me she made way more money while unemployed.  Now that her restaurant has reopened, she's not making as much as she did before the pandemic because social distancing measures have reduced the number of tables she can wait on.  I told her, “I hope you saved some of that extra 600 dollars.”
 
Financial experts suggest putting a portion of your weekly paycheck into an emergency fund but just how much money you need to set aside depends on who you talk to.  Some say it should cover your expenses for the next 3 to 6 months while others suggest it should last an entire year.  When I mentioned the importance of having an emergency fund, a coworker laughed and said he lived paycheck to paycheck “like most Americans do.”  Another quipped, “One year?  I don't have enough for one week.”  Americans are not very good savers.  Perhaps it's because we live in a society with so many ways to frivolously spend our hard-earned money.

We often hear people say the poor should pull themselves up by their bootstraps but it's amazing how that advice doesn't seem to apply when financial difficulties hit close to home.  Suddenly the ones complaining about high taxes and handouts have no trouble taking extra money from the government.  I don't know anyone who returned their $1,200 stimulus check saying, “No thanks.”  Most recipients probably consider it payback for all the high taxes that take a big chunk out of their weekly earnings...especially if they are single with no dependents.

I do wonder how our country is going to pay for all of this, though.  As politicians debate yet another aid package any talk of balanced budgets seems like a distant memory.  Remember the national debt clock?  It's amazing how Congress can come up with trillions of dollars for handouts just like that.  If American citizens can't control their finances, I guess we shouldn't expect our leaders to either.

Despite significantly reduced municipal services and the closure of city hall, my hometown's mayor was all too happy to announce no city employees would be laid off during the pandemic.  He also made no offer to reduce his very generous six figure salary despite the fact that many residents are now struggling to pay their property taxes. He did talk about raising taxes, however.

Conservatives say we should not be giving away benefits that are so high because it incentivizes people not to work.  Liberals claim there aren't enough jobs for everyone so extra financial assistance is needed.  Well, there are still jobs out there for those who want to work.  Our company has been frantically trying to fill positions for the better part of a year now without much success.  The few new hires we do get tend to be lazy bottom feeders.  One coworker who liked calling in sick whenever there was something fun going on in his life now gets a two week “paid vacation” for reporting flu-like symptoms thanks to Covid-19 self-quarantine regulations.  Meanwhile, us poor suckers who are plagued by a strong work ethic must make due.
 
For all the recent talk of poverty and racial injustice, fairly decent jobs remain vacant.  The only thing my bosses care about is getting the work done, not gender or skin color.  A person coming from nothing could go really far at my workplace but breaking a life-long culture of entitlement is not going to be easy especially when you see average people fall so quickly under its spell.