(FORUM) Can the federal govt. force people to take a “suitable” job?


The following is commentary intended for discussion. Add your comments.

The employment rate is lagging and companies are hurting for workers.

That, amid growing concern that some people aren’t working because they do well enough by collecting extra Covid-19-related unemployment benefits, an extra $300 a week beyond normal.

Or, in some cases, people may be working “under the table” while continuing to collect benefits.

This week, President Biden said there’s not much evidence that’s the case. However, he also said the government will make it clear that unemployed people who are offered a suitable job must take it, or lose their unemployment benefits.

That raises several questions.

Who decides what a “suitable” job for a person is? The unemployment benefit case worker? The federal government?

How is the job offer discovered? Obviously, people who offer someone a job do not report it to the federal government if the person turns down the job. Is the government relying on unemployed folks to self-report that they turned down a suitable job?

Anyone collecting unemployment, if offered a suitable job, must take the job or lose unemployment benefits…That’s the law.

President Joe Biden

What do you think?


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18 thoughts on “(FORUM) Can the federal govt. force people to take a “suitable” job?”

  1. It is the law and it has been on the books for sometime. However its not enforced because it would require employers to report hirees that turn down jobs offers and who does the investigation?

  2. I have to agree with China Joe in this case. The govt. is not forcing people to get a suitable job, as the person can just forgo unemployment benefits.

  3. Ever read Woodrow Wilson’s treatise “The Study of Public Administration”? Both the 5th and 14th Amendments in part guarantee “life, liberty, and property.” Benefits? I own a business. Government never asks if I am hiring. The last to quit, was upset that a new hire was making more than her. Even at $11 an hour, she doesn’t feel a pinch as Welfare, WIC and Medicaid more than make up for the loss in wages. And who pays for those “benefits”? According to the Supreme Court (Pollock v. Farmers Loan &Trust (1895)), your pay IS your “property.”

  4. If an employer is paying a worker ‘under the table’, then both are violating the law, ie IRS, FICA, worker comp insurance, etc.
    If a worker declines a ‘suitable’ job offer (which I think is defined by the worker’s skills or compensation commensurate with work history or education), then the worker has violated the eligibility rules for govt unemployment benefits.
    It is my understanding those have always been “the rules”.
    The root of the current problem is that the government is not auditing for compliance. The bigger the government bureaucracy becomes the sloppier and looser it handles the taxpayers’ money.

  5. Unemployment is supposed to be temporary. People collecting unemployment must be actively looking for work, and if offered a job for which they are qualified, must take it or lose unemployment. There are criteria for what jobs they must take, so an executive is not forced to work at McDonald’s, etc. This rule prevents freeloaders from sucking us dry.

  6. It is a noble thing for the gov’t to offer some assistance to the unemployed. That should never be an open-ended arrangement of guaranteed income nor in an amount that discourages finding work.
    When the alternative is having NO income, all jobs are suitable jobs.

  7. In the past to qualify for unemployment benefits you had to show the State proof that you were looking for a job. I think that the State can require you to take a job if you are offered one and I am not sure that if you don’t like it that matters much.

    I went from a small business Comptroller to a receivables clerk at a great pay cut but I needed a job so had no choice. I think that perhaps the idea of doing what you have to do to survive is kind of lost on many people now.

  8. I believe the $300 is per week not per month. In Oregon many are collecting up to $800 per week with the Fed funds As you indicated; it is near impossible to know if someone has turned down a job. Some states are turning to offering a bonus if you go back to work of $1250., and dropping the extra $300 per week from the Feds.

  9. I recall another old Marxist that used to suggest such things… Something about to each according to needs and from him his abilities…. What was his name…. oh yeah, MARX!!!

  10. This is an interesting discussion being played out on LinkedIn under posts by several people, particularly in posts made by people who have HR or ‘career counseling in their bios. The idea that people are sitting home enjoying the added federal payouts is appealing to these ’employment professionals,’ and that businesses that cannot hire for entry-level or just above positions are the bad-guys for not offering higher wages. Anyone who suggests these businesses are operating on a shoe-string budget, particularly having lost nearly all business in the last year, are met with derision and classism insults. Further, these same proponents of high minimum wages see nothing wrong with the federal payments that make unemployment pay more than most entry-level work. If you suggest the federal add-on should be stopped, you may well be called an elitist or cold=hearted.

    This prevailing attitude has to be changed.

  11. Simply enforce a reasonable endpoint to benefits without exception. That will fix the issue. Treat adults like adults instead of infantilizing them. They will rise to the occasion.

  12. Charles Pritchard

    I’m 58 and never collected unemployment. Could always find a new job within couple days so I just never filed. Some jobs required me to move so I went where the work was.

  13. Objective Reality

    Biden is severely cognitively compromised. In his younger days the truth was always eluded him. Now as then, his statements have as much value as a roll of Charmin. He is clearly not in charge. Marxist ideology is being promoted from every dark corner of the Left.

  14. Those poor people in West Virginia and Southern States like Tennessee , I Wonder if they Know that in the Future Shell Rock crushed into Dust particle molecules is going to be the New economic Coal of the Future ? New Industrial Chemistry = Is it going to be a New kind of American Opec Solid Churn – to a New greater Gas resource ( Solid / liquid / Gas ) ? In my fruitful Universe anything can be made possible E=( X ) n,C,r.) ” Sometimes past discoveries can be made into future realities ! I guess that’s why there is more going on in the Universe, than just 7 or 8 Planets and nothing beyond that but Dark energy holding only one solar system together = Continued Genesis made unsquared and constant and Fruitful … I find all this ongoing Genesis like the Sun’s constant changing of Atom’s here on Earth unsquared kind of Naughty and Sexy to note ? ( The Naughty X Files ? )

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