Are Uneployment Payments too Low?

[barbaro]

Unemployment payments seem low. But if they were high they might dissuade people to look for work, and therefore drive the costs up for everyone that pays in.

Different states have different Unemployment ceilings.

Should people be more frugal, save, and prepare more for these time of unemployment, and/or should the state raise the celings?

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For New York’s Newly Jobless, $430 Doesn’t Go Far

Ruby Washington/The New York Times
Cara Weissman, who lost her job in December, said she was saving the cost of a MetroCard by riding her bicycle from her home in Astoria, Queens.

Published: April 18, 2009
Lose your job in Boston, Pittsburgh, Seattle or Trenton and you could collect $544 or more per week in unemployment benefits. But get laid off in New York City, as almost 200,000 workers have in the past year, and the most you can collect is $430 a week.
Despite its high cost of living, New York pays less to its unemployed than about two dozen other states, including all of its neighbors. New York’s benefits have not been raised by lawmakers in Albany in more than a decade, making it particularly difficult for jobless residents of the metropolitan area to pay for food, rent and health insurance.

Michael Sklar, 51, said he had resorted to asking his parents for financial help after several months of trying to support his family of three on the unemployment pay he collects from New York State. The federal unemployment insurance system was designed to temporarily replace about half of a laid-off worker’s lost income, but Mr. Sklar’s benefits amount to just one-fifth of what he said he had earned as a senior systems analyst for Sony Music Entertainment in Manhattan before he was dismissed in late August.

Most of his unemployment pay goes toward the $1,300 a month he pays to maintain the health insurance his family had obtained through Sony. To cover the rest of the family’s expenses, including college tuition for his son, Mr. Sklar has been using his severance pay and savings, he said. He and his wife have cut out frills like movies and eating out. They occasionally attend free cooking classes at a Mexican restaurant in Hackensack, N.J., for the meals that come with them.

Mr. Sklar, who lives in Fort Lee, N.J., said that he had considered filing for bankruptcy but avoided doing so by borrowing from his parents, who are in their 80s. “I shouldn’t have to turn to my parents, as a 51-year-old man, and ask for money,” he said.

Lnk & entire: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/ny...s.html?_r=1&hp

[blackgang]

How in the hell can you even ask such stupid guestions when as you stated that they are different in every state.
Last time I drew it I Had been working for a NY co. and so I drew NY wages, which were $78 a week, and was living in Oregon where wages and costs were cheaper and the max in Oregon was about $40 a week.
But that was not for a very long term and was 40 years ago.