If I am denied unemployment benefits, how long do I have to be unemployed before I can receive benefits?
I was never given reprimand, warnings, etc. before I was fired. Now unemployment has denied my claim. Of course, my company has "whatever reasons" which I haven't seen, but the unemployment investigator determined I was fired and that disqualified me for beneits. How long, if I can't find work, do I have to go before I can draw some benefits?
Can one still collect unemployment benefits if the job they found pay less than the previous one?
That would be fraud. Surprised you cannot see this. Imagine the scandal in the press if news got out of a fully employed person trying to claim Unemployment Benefit. You must be a very greedy person with no thought for those who are genuinely unemployed with no income at all
What to do when Unemployment Benefit runs out? (California)?
Good news and bad news. Good news: CA automatically applies for your extensions with no work necessary on your part. The extensions are Federally funded and they want the state's unemployed to get as much money as possible so they'll spend it and CA will get the tax income. Bad news: Congress is still fiddling with legislation which will allow the unemployed to apply for those extensions. Right now, you are not eligible for any of the Tiers 1 through IV because you can't apply for them. Once the legislation passes, the Tiers will be available through November 30. So.....if the legislation passes before you run out of funds, the extension will go through automatically. If it doesn't pass before you run out of funds, you will need to keep filing your bi-weekly forms, wait until it does pass, and then receive a lump sum amount of all monies owed. If your rent is due during that gap, you're out of luck. I suggest that you do what many of us are already doing -- write/call/email your elected representatives and tell them to pass that legislation. That will serve two purposes: (1) remind them that there are still people in their districts who cannot get jobs, and (2) you know their names and will remember them come the next election.
Unemployment statics, has it changed in the calculation or just the reporting during the bush administration ?
It's the reporting of the calculations that have changed, when figuring unemployment statistics. When a person runs out of benefits, they are no longer counted as unemployed, whether they are employed or not. When a person takes a pay cut due to taking a new job, that cut is not factored into those statistics. The loss in fringe benefits are also not figured into this equation. The reason for all of this? Bush needs to keep things very simple in order to understand economics. So the new formula for unemployment statistics was adopted.
I am well over my OPT 90 day period of unemployment. Even if I get an offer now for employment, am I able to legally accept it?
If you have accumulated at least 90 days of unemployment, you have violated the terms of your OPT, and therefore technically you no longer have OPT or F1 status anymore.There is no “extension” to apply for because your OPT has not expired — OPT is for 1 year. Rather, you have violated the terms of OPT before it has expired. You can only apply for a STEM extension if you are successfully completing your 1 year of OPT.If you take a job, it will technically be unauthorized work, because you are no longer on OPT (in addition to you being out of status because you have lost your F1 status). However, neither the employer nor the government will likely find out in the short term, because you have an unexpired EAD and an unexpired I-20 for OPT. The number of days of unemployment you have accumulated in OPT is not directly known to them. However, if you apply for other immigration benefits in the future, they will likely determine that you have been out of status and working illegally during this time.
How can government policies aimed at helping the unemployed actually create unemployment?
The most obvious example I can think of, which was always discussed in my macroeconomics class, is the minimum wage: if the minimum wage goes up too far, employers will find it too expensive to employ many workers, so they will lay people off, and the unemployment rate will rise. Basically, any labor/welfare related policy that makes it more expensive or less efficient for employers to do business will create unemployment. This has particularly been a problem in France (where unemployment is 10 or 11%) because of all the benefits given to workers: it is nearly impossible for a French company to fire its workers, so therefore they hire less people, and unemployment is high. Below are some good sources on this issue:
How is it that our government claims an unemployment rate of 7.8% and yet I see what appears to be closer to 30%?
The official government unemployment rate includes only people who are receiving unemployment benefits.It does not include people who are not working, or who are looking for jobs but are not collecting unemployment.What you're seeing is the effect of long term unemployment -- they stay unemployed long enough for their benefits to run out, or they use the benefits to extend early retirement.In any case, the metric you are looking for is not the reported unemployment rate. There are two metrics you should be concerned about when talking about employment: Employment to population ratio and the labor force participation rate.Chart source: Calculated RiskEmployment:Population ratio has been stuck for the last few years, far removed from its high, and that's what you're seeing.Of course, this is at a national level. At a state level, the unemployment rates are different from the national rate. You may happen to live in a state with a higher unemployment rate than others, in an area that may have a higher unemployment rate than others.