and I replied with How do you know that about unemployment? Not every one gets paid the same. The amounts vary dramatically from a maximum of $230 in Mississippi to $628 in Massachusetts and that's every week.
Again, these are MAXIMUM FIGURES. And, as I said, these are based on income. Now, our MAXIMUM UNEMPLOYMENT INCOME FIGURES for Massachusetts are, as you say, ~$2,500 monthly. Again, this is the most you can make on unemployment. Now, let's look at the median income (average monthly income) for Massachusetts.
Median income for Mass. for 2008 was $65,304 annually, or $5,442 monthly. So as you can see if you are getting the MAXIMUM for unemployment, you will be receiving less than half of the average income. Seems like it's a relatively small amount.
Median income for Mississippi for 2008 was $37,818, or ~$3,151 monthly. Again, a far cry from the MAXIMUM UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT of $920 per month.
Unemployment insurance is not designed to be an income, it's designed for you to receive a very small portion of your previous income so you don't end up homeless while you are between jobs, and again, time of employment, previous salary, cost of living, tax bracket, these are all factors which determine your benefit amounts.
I know for a fact you don't have to pay into ssi to get ssi. All you have to do is get a doctor to say your disabled.
While this is true, the preponderance of those receiving benefits have worked and paid into taxes, mitigating the cost to other taxpayers, like myself. Again, it is a federal benefit to the elderly and disabled. Honestly, I'm not too worried about this demographic running down to the Bronx to score some crack.
Oh, and about the drug testing: The average cost of a simple drug test is $42. There are currently 37 million people receiving food stamps, and another 4 million receiving other benefits, like cash assistance, TANF, utilities and rental assistance etc.
The cost to test these 41 million people just once annually for basic drugs would be in excess of 1.7 billion dollars. And, as we all know, one annual test does not cut it, especially to hinder the use of drugs like cocaine and methamphetemines which are processed in as little as 3 days, and marijuana which is processed in less than 30 days.
Again, these funds would be paid by our taxes, which you seem to have a problem with being spent in the form of assistance to needy families.
Let me ask you this: How old are you, how long have you worked, and how much have you paid in taxes, since you seem so concerned about it.
