Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Arizona Unemployment Insurance: Work Search Requirements Are An Insult

I have previously written another blog post on Unemployment Insurance in Arizona.


An Update

Yesterday (9/25/2012), I have received two letters (each one page) in the mail from the Arizona Department of Economic Security/Unemployment Insurance Administration (AZUIA), both dealing with the work search requirements.

The first letter contains following line in the letter head “New Work Search Eligibility Requirements Effective August 5, 2012” (Emphasis added). This letter contains “Important Information”, about two thirds of the letter explains in more details what “systematic and sustained work search” means.

The second letter is captioned “Clarification of Work Search Requirements”. It says “[t]here has been a lot of confusion and misunderstanding on how to report work search requirements …”. Oh, really!
Then, AZUIA provides a sample table of what an “adequate” work search should look like with the caveat “(DO NOT COPY)” (Emphasis original). Are the taxpayers or are the bureaucrats morons?

I say what a moronic waste of taxpayers’ money!


Brief Background

Following information is presented on screen, when an unemployed person does her/his weekly unemployment claims reporting online as he or she is asked to enter work search efforts into an online work search log:
“Per A.R.S. [Arizona Revised Statutes?] 23-771.A.4, all claimants must conduct a systematic and sustained Work Search for each week of Unemployment Insurance benefits claimed.
A systematic and sustained Work Search consists of contacts during at least four days of the week.
If you select ‘Other’ please provide the Employer name, address and/or phone number, method of contact along with any other information.”

An Outrage

To put it bluntly, I think this online form to report your weekly work search efforts is outrageous!

Do these lawmakers not know that job search is a demanding full time job that comes with many disappointments along the way especially during the Great Recession? As if I have to be told by lawmakers that I “must conduct a systematic and sustained Work search”.

For a meager maximum of $240 unemployment insurance benefit per week (about 25% of what I used to make a week), I have to keep track where I applied etc. and spend up to about 10 minutes of my time to fulfill this bureaucratic requirement using a cumbersome web form. Not to mention that unemployment benefits are usually paid only for a maximum of 26 weeks. Hint to lawmakers: I do not mind if you shorten this period.

This meager unemployment benefit has to cover our rent, utilities, my health insurance premium, food, federal/state income taxes (yes, this is taxable income.) etc. On top of that these lawmakers want me to report my work search efforts, this is an insult.

Finally, it is none of the business of government to require me to report which employers I contacted when during my work search.


Waste Of Taxpayers’ Money

In August of 2012, there were almost 250,000 reported unemployed persons in Arizona. If only 50% of those have to fill out this weekly work search requirement and if we assume an Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) employee would spend 1 minute per weekly report on verifying this information, this would amount to the DES having to spend 260 work days per week just to check if it is done manually. Or did the DES buy a possibly expensive software to do this verification? Do they statistically sample? Anyway, if the DES tries to verify it would be a substantial waste of taxpayers’ money!

If the DES does not verify, then this is just another burden on the unemployed. So what the heck is this good for?

1 comment:

Polarc said...

Nice insight about Arizona insurance coverage. This is a must read for many. :)