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Unemployment Pay for Furlough?
SPHR guy wrote in during our Layoff or Day Off show that furloughs in small doses might be worse than a big chunk of required unpaid leave:
Everyone enjoys extra time away from work, but it is virtually impossible to do any remunerative work or draw public assistance for one or two scattered days each month. For example, if the Governor were to lay off employees for 24 consecutive work days, employees could qualify for unemployment.
Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian wasn't sure of the law, but he said that sounded right. So we checked with Craig Spivey at the Oregon Employment Department. He says yep, if you're off for a day or two, unemployment doesn't kick in. But if you're out of work for at least a week straight, through no fault of your own, you can (and, he says, you should!) file. He mentioned that Oregon mill workers and RV builders have been sent on regular furloughs even before this recession and been covered by unemployment insurance. You don't get paid for the first week. See the state's unemployment FAQ for details.
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I worked at a windsurfing shop in Hood River in which the owner implemented Gorge Bucks "community dollars" to keep currency local. Interesting experiment with lots of details to work out. For example, how are Gorge Bucks handled in the accounting and taxes of the business? I think the goals of community dollars are worthy of further thought and discussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_community_currencies_in_the_United_States
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I am totally agree with your oppinion
Galantamine Hydrobromide
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Comments are now closed.
I greatly enjoyed this show, it was informative (and worrisome, as so much is in the national dialogue these days).
Personally, I've always been happy to take unpaid days off as the time off and freedom I enjoy on those days is more than worth the lost wages. I realize, however, that unpaid days off are much harder to enjoy when living paycheck to paycheck, or when the budget is already stretched to the max. This whole furlough/layoff issue is a tough one.
On an unrelated note: At the end of the program there were a few comments about the possibilities (and negatives, as I heard it) of turning more toward a bartering economy (something about not being able to pay for groceries with hay?) and Emily mentioned that this might be a topic for another show. If this does become a show topic, I would like to suggest contacting a local company called Tradia (www.tradia.net) to talk about the realities of operating within a barter system. I've recently become aware of their system through a friend that works with them and though the company has been around for 13 years, they are experiencing a boom in interest in their system as the traditional economy continues to sputter. Trade or barter is just one more way that people are learning to cope with the sharp downturn and resulting drops in income and security and I think it would make an interesting topic on TOL one morning.