DoD Waste or a Valuable Program

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Even as it faces budget cuts and forced employee furloughs, the Pentagon is spending nearly a $1 billion a year on a program that sends unemployment checks to former troops who left the military voluntarily.

Unemployment Compensation for Ex-Servicemembers, a Labor Department program, is a spinoff of the federal-state unemployment insurance program. The Labor Department says the overall program is meant to help "eligible workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own" such as during layoffs.

But eligibility for the military compensation requires only that a person served in uniform and was honorably discharged. In other words, anyone who joins the military and serves for several years, then decides not to re-enlist, is potentially eligible for what could amount to more than 90 weeks of unemployment checks.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/15/pentagon-spending-nearly-1billion-year-on-unemployment-despite-budget-cuts/
 
I'll say........



waste. But is it DOD funded of DOL funded? Just want to know how to classify the waste.
 
I have to agree with waste to some degree. Certainly 90 weeks is excessive. But I have to believe lining up that next job while you're in the military cannot be easy. It's not like you can drop what you're doing to go to that job unterview back home. Some sort of "severance" seems to be in order but not this.
 
But eligibility for the military compensation requires only that a person served in uniform and was honorably discharged. In other words, anyone who joins the military and serves for several years, then decides not to re-enlist, is potentially eligible for what could amount to more than 90 weeks of unemployment checks.

I really do wish these folks would research their facts.

The 90 week unemployment period has been gone for a while.


One last thing to be said in fairness to our vets who choose not to re-enlist and collect an unemployment check - in any other profession, if your terms of employment are such that you are required to relocate to another state in order to be accept a job offer, you can turn down that job offer and continue to be eligible for unemployment in your home state. Remember, in the military you are give an X year contract near the end of which you are often (but not always) offered another X year contract. If that offer of continued employment requires you to relocate to accept it, it is within the rules of unemployment insurance to decline it and continue receiving benefits.

That being said, I'd rather see our military require those leaving and collecting unemployment to report to post and engage in job search duties as a requirement to collect those benefits, suitable facilities for such being provided on post. For that matter, it would be good for all who collect unemployment to report to a job placement center a certain number of hours per week to work on their employment search, but that would be up to the states to implement.
 
I have to agree with waste to some degree. Certainly 90 weeks is excessive. But I have to believe lining up that next job while you're in the military cannot be easy. It's not like you can drop what you're doing to go to that job unterview back home. Some sort of "severance" seems to be in order but not this.

Well, if you manage your time, you could have a few months of terminal leave....so not sure how we can justify playing someone who willingly got out... just because.
 
Maximum unemployment in NY was (as of a few years ago) $409/week before taxes. Anyone who thinks people want to be on unemployment has never been on it.
 
Maximum unemployment in NY was (as of a few years ago) $409/week before taxes. Anyone who thinks people want to be on unemployment has never been on it.

In general I would agree with you... but I must also say I know people in NY who were on unemployment and stayed there when people were offering them a good paying job. Not vets in this case but nevertheless true. It all depends on one's particular FAMILY'S economic circumstances. If your wife is earning a good buck in addition to your unemployment, why rush back to work... or at least that was the attitude in the cases I'm aware of.
 
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