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Unemployment Benefits Essay

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Title: Unemployment Benefits Only Good for a Limited Amount of Time Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that extending unemployment benefits strains an already overused and failing government program. Central Idea: Today, I would like to tell you about the problem of extending unemployment benefits, as well as offer some possible solutions that our lawmakers should adopt instead of another extension. Introduction Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and have joined the growing ranks of the unemployed recently as the recent recession gripped the U.S. In fact, nearly one out of ten Americans are now unemployed and seeking a new job. I'm sure that most of you know someone who has been affected by the recession either by …show more content…

a. A recent study actually shows that very few people started working during the two to three weeks prior to the exhaustion of their unemployment benefits, but almost 30 percent started work just a week later when their benefits were about to run out (Mulligan). b. Basically, as long as they are getting paid to not work, many people will put off accepting a job. B. Extending unemployment benefits also encourages misuse unemployment benefits. 1. An article by Marianne Hill, "Unemployment Insurance: a Broken System," tells that: "when unemployment insurance was established as a nationwide program in 1935, it was hailed as a means of enabling workers to protect their standard of living between jobs". 2. The system was originally set up to help people who suddenly lose their job, but there is now wide misuse of the system which is only encouraged when the time period someone is allowed to collect benefits is extended time and again. 3. Types of misuse and fraud include claiming unemployment benefits while working another job that pays cash only which isn't reported, failing to actively seek employmen while collecting unemployment, and fraudulently using stolen social security numbers to claim unemployment. 4. Each year more than 16 million dollars worth of unemployment fraud is identified by Labor Department investigation--and that is likely just

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