Saturday, March 14, 2009

Screwing the Unemployed

CNN has a surprisingly decent story about how the states are screwing over unemployed people by charging them every time they use the debit cards they receive for their unemployment benefits.

I'm not surprised that states are trying to recoup some of the costs of unemployment. It's a system that the states shouldn't be administering in the first place. Unemployment should be a national system, like in Europe and Australia, where if you are out of work, you can go on the dole and they don't screw you over too bad. Still, even with the system as it is now, it's really bad. Why would you make the poor even poorer? What is that supposed to accomplish?

Maybe when the unemployed march on Washington under a new Coxey's Army, this will be something to riot over.