No way Stormy was serious - was he?
^ I don’t know. It would be funny if stormy was actually raking in monster money before he got shitcanned, collected unemployment, and he’s just making fun of the little guy.
Stormy is Obama’s speech writer.
Am I serious? As serious as Frank watching a KimK rerun!
Does anoe know if the unemployment insurance actually funds itself? If it takes premiums but doesn’t actually cover the cost, that would be the deciding difference to me on whether if someone pays it do they get it.
^ I don’t know, but would suspect that it is self-funding based on the rationale that the vast majority of people pay into it their entire working careers and never collect. No facts or figures though, just a hunch.
Looks like someone didn’t remmeber L1 Econ. The statutory incidence of the tax is irrelevant to who actually bears the burden of it. If the company knows it is going to have to pay the tax, it offers the employee a lower salary because of it. Even though the employer technically writes the check, the employee has to accept less pay.
Who bears the burden depends on whether the employer needs the employee more than the employee needs the employer. In a labor market where unemployment is high, that means employees pay more. In good times, it means employers pay more of it.
There is certainly some sensitivity of gross income to this. In general though, I bet employees take home less in states where employees formally pay for unemployment insurance. The reason is that not all employees will consider the rule. A $99k job offer is not as attractive as a $100k job offer with small print that there is a $1k tax somewhere. So, companies which can give the second offer will be preferred over companies that give the first offer.
In general unemployment insurance is paid for by a tax only on employers, so we don’t directly pay for it, but yeah Econ 101 is there somewhere. If NJ does charge that to employees, there is reason #974 to not live or work there, but anyway…
Honestly, if a millionaire loses his job and is legitimately entitled to collect UI, then go for it. I’m not about to advocate denying somebody a benefit that they qualify for simply on the basis that they might not need it as much as somebody else.
I feel the same way about social security benefits. Leftists like to talk about how we should have social security phase outs for high earners. Our current tax system already has different levels of taxation for SS benefits based on gross income, ranging between 0 to 85% of SS benefits being included in income. And this is on money that was already taxed when deducted. Such BS. Personally I consider SS taxes to be an additional income tax. By the time I am retirement age SS will either be completely insolvent or I will hopefully have amassed enough wealth/income to exceed whatever phaseouts they establish.