Liberal, Government, Financial, Narrative, Oops, Jobs

PORTLAND, Ore. — It's been one week since federal pandemic unemployment benefits ended. In the days following, restaurants across Portland tell KATU News they saw a spike in people looking for work.

  The owner at Chef's Table said his team is seeing about 50% more applicants, but this comes at a time when there are still many jobs to fill...

  Nate Tilden said in the last nine months, maybe two people walked in the door to drop off a resume. In the last week, that number jumped to about a dozen...

  "My fear is that folks took an 18-month break and they were on the couch the whole time and now they’re forced to go back into the labor market and it 'sucks' and they 'just want to get paid' and I fear they’re not going to want to do the actual physical job of working," Tilden said.

Liberal, Financial, Narrative, Oops, Economy, Jobs

A new poll indicates that 1.8 million Americans have turned down job offers in order to stay on unemployment insurance.

  Morning Consult surveyed 463 out-of-work American adults at the end of June. 13% — roughly one in eight — said that they had refused job offers while unemployed because they “receive enough money from unemployment insurance without having to work.”

Liberal, Funny, Oops

Panera Bread has shuttered the last of its ideologically driven "pay what you want" restaurants. The socialist-tinged ventures were called "Panera Cares" and the higher-ups have finally figured out that "caring" is not synonymous with "viable business model." On February 15, the final Panera Cares, located in Boston, will close...

  The chain opened its first donation-based community cafe in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2010. Under the model championed by the company’s founder Ron Shaich, the restaurant operated like a typical Panera, but offered meals at a suggested donation price, with the goal of raising awareness about food insecurity.

Liberal, Character, Narrative, Oops, Jobs

Thirteen previously exempted Alabama counties saw an 85 percent drop in food stamp participation after work requirements were put in place on Jan. 1, according to the Alabama Department of Human Resources...

  As of Jan. 1, 2017, there were 13,663 able-bodied adults without dependents receiving food stamps statewide. That number dropped to 7,483 by May 1, 2017.

Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Financial, Narrative, Oops, Jobs

Maine, one of the most proactive states in reinstating work requirements for food stamps, saw its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents decrease by 80 percent within just a few months after re-establishing the work requirement. Kansas has experienced similar results, seeing its caseload decline by 75 percent. Accompanying the decline in caseload has been an increase in employment and earnings for able-bodied adults without dependents.

Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Financial, Narrative, Oops, Jobs

In Maine, all able-bodied adults without dependents in the food stamp program are now required to take a job, participate in training, or perform community service.

  Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine, and for those ABAWD recipients who cannot find immediate employment, Maine offers both training and community service slots. But despite vigorous outreach efforts by the government to encourage participation, most childless adult recipients in Maine refused to participate in training or even to perform community service for six hours per week. When ABAWD recipients refused to participate, their food stamp benefits ceased.

  In the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.

Liberal, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Jobs

If you pay people not to work, they won’t work — and cutting off their payments sends them scurrying back into the job market, according to new research by three academics who looked at the federal government’s extended unemployment benefit program and concluded that it actually deepened, rather than helped, the jobs recession... “We find that the cut in unemployment benefit duration led to a 2 percent increase in aggregate employment, accounting for nearly all of the remarkable employment growth in the U.S. in 2014,” the researchers wrote.

Editorial, Liberal, Crime, Narrative, Theft

A woman walked into a Wal-Mart and tried to buy several iPads with her EBT card. Twice. Food stamps for iPads. Tracy Browning, a 38-year-old Louisville, Kentucky woman, allegedly attempted to purchase the Apple tablets using an Electronic Benefit Transfer card, then assaulted store employees and took off with the merchandise when it didn’t work. She was arrested when she tried to do the same thing at another Wal-Mart a few hours later.

Liberal, Degeneracy, Narrative, Oops, Jobs

A man arrested on suspicion of panhandling in Oklahoma City told officers there was no point in getting a job, because he made "$60,000" last year. According to the police report, an officer spotted Shane Warren Speegle, 45, panhandling near Interstate 40 and Macarthur Boulevard earlier this month. When the officer approached Speegle and told him it was illegal to panhandle without a permit, Speegle asked if he could get a permit that day and implied the $200 fee was not a bad price. According to the report, the officer asked Speegle why he didn't just get a job and Speegle replied, "I'm lazy, and I made $60,000 doing this last year. Why would I go get a job?"

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Narrative, Oops, Waste, Debt

“[S]ince President Obama took office [in January 2009], federal welfare spending has increased by 41 percent, more than $193 billion per year,” the study says. Federal welfare spending in fiscal year 2011 totaled $668 billion, spread out over 126 programs, while the poverty rate that remains high at 15.1 percent, roughly where it was in 1965, when President Johnson declared a federal War on Poverty.

A study conducted by Columbia Business School's Prof. Stephan Meier, Regina Pitaro Associate Professor of Business, Management, and Charles Sprenger, Assistant Professor, Stanford University Department of Economics, determines that there may be a psychological reason for why people default on their mortgages. The research, which will be featured in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that the participants in the study with poor credit scores were more impatient and were more likely to choose immediate rewards rather than wait for a larger reward in the future.

Hypocrisy, Liberal, Tax, Government, Financial, Narrative, Oops

Eager to pay more taxes? Then look no further than Norway.

  Hammered by the opposition for slashing taxes and going on a spending spree with the country’s oil money, the center-right government has hit back with a bold proposal: voluntary contributions.

  Launched in June, the initiative has received a lukewarm reception, with the equivalent of just $1,325 in extra revenue being collected so far, according to the Finance Ministry.

Hypocrisy, Liberal, Tax, Character, Narrative, Greed

As the deadline for filing 2009 state income taxes nears, once again the Beautiful People of Massachusetts are proving that while they enjoy talking the talk, walking the walk is another thing altogether.

Liberal, Character, Fraud, Narrative

Tests found 39 per cent of new claimants fit to work. A further 36 per cent abandoned their claim - suggesting they knew tests would see them sent to find jobs. In all 887,300 scroungers were snared.