Collecting Unemployment Or Get Training and School For A New Career?

by Chris - unemployment-tips.com
(United States)

Have you had to make a choice between collecting unemployment or getting training and school just to find a job?

I have a strong emotional reaction of outrage every time someone tells me there unemployment benefits have been stopped because of this.

My husband is the one that suffers most when I rant and rave .. so I'm giving him a break from my ongoing unemployment bitchfest and directing it to a more "uncaptive" audience.

I'm hoping more of you will be willing to engage with me:)

Urging vs. Mandating

It seems President Obama can urge and encourage till the cows come home to allow opportunities for going back to school or short term training for job certifications.

But I wonder, when will rhetoric finally become real action.

Since politicians are so entrenched in what appears to be an eternal partisan debate on unemployment extensions .. instead of practicing common sense (which I think lives in the middle of the road) I'm not hopeful for real solutions. (See advisory # 20 for the urging to the states).

If we believe most of us are one or two paychecks away from being homeless when employed, how much closer are you when you collect unemployment, but exhaust benefits before you find a job.

After all, new jobs are almost non-existent .. unless you want to work for a temp agency at half the money doing a job you used to do.

What happens when a state suspends unemployment benefits for weeks at a time to investigate a box on the continuing claim form which asks if you started school or training?

Will you even be able to maintain your internet or phone long enough to contact the state, if you can get through to them that is to ask what's going on?

The unemployment system is a broken down Model T

It's an "old fart" of a system that has not kept pace with the changes our society has gone through since unemployment's inception in 1935 ..

During that time this country only lost two percent of the jobs in this country. Compare that to this recession and economy which has lost six percent of the jobs.

The system is a broken down old Model T when it should have been transformed into a sleek, efficient, green and mean form of economic recovery for the 21st century .. not 1935.

Unemployment benefits are not a uniform safety net for us all.

.


Unemployment is one of those benefits that people count on .. just in case the unthinkable ever happen, but when it comes time to use it .. it's not anything like it might be conceived.

The same level of benefits are not available to all Americans or even under all the same circumstances of job loss.

And certainly, the disparity continues to the subject of school and training while unemployed.

When it comes to going back to school while collecting unemployment your state government may be missing the boat of opportunity. Especially, when the new jobs that will be created will require higher and new skills.

See the 2010 Nonmonetary Chartbook (Table 5-12 Treatment of Students) Some states make it nearly impossible to attend school while unemployed .. regardless of who pays for it. Others use it as an easy and plausible excuse to delay benefits for not a week, but weekS while they investigate your ability and availability for work.

Training for new job skills is supposed to be another possible benefit of unemployment to get you off unemployment and back to work, but to take full advantage of the "employment programs" you may have to do a lot of digging and ask a lot of questions of some very cranky and overworked state workers.

They should be helping more and impeding less. And I don't believe they should be forcing people into a decision which the choice is giving up learning new skills or simply surviving and waiting for the economy to change so they can go back to work.


This area of unemployment is for me a weak area. My experience is pretty much limited to the fact that I know quitting a job to attend school is disqualifying and sending informational letters to the state for employers to tell on you .. if they know you are attending school .. which of course may result in benefits being suspended until an "investigation can be conducted" (I'm not proud .. this website is part penance)

Come on, talk to me and save my husband from his unemployed wife :-)

Do you have an opinion on collecting unemployment benefits and going to school?

Do you have helpful information about unemployment and going to school or training in the state you live in that will enlighten us?

Unemployment and school or unemployment and starting a business raise the same issue that initiative always raises.

Able, available and looking for a job?