Photo by Hank Rogers
I know enough about the Corbett administration that I’m going to assume this was the desired effect:
More than 50,000 Pennsylvania residents have lost unemployment benefits since last summer because they failed to meet a new state requirement to register on a job-listings website.
Advocates for the unemployed attribute the problem to technical errors by the state, the nation’s digital divide, and a lack of awareness of the new rule.
Under the law, which the General Assembly approved in 2011 and the state began enforcing in August 2013, those who receive unemployment compensation must sign up for the state-run jobgateway.pa.gov within 30 days. State officials said the regulation would help more unemployed Pennsylvanians find work.
Between September 2013 and April, unemployment benefits were halted for about 51,200 applicants — or roughly one in 10 — who did not enroll in time, according to data obtained by WHYY.
Pennsylvania officials said they do not know how long the average person has stopped receiving benefits. Sharon Dietrich, an attorney at the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Community Legal Services, estimated it has been days and even weeks.
“That could be the difference between being able to pay the rent and not, facing a utilities cutoff or eviction notice or not, or even being able to adequately feed your family,” she said.
Of course it was the intended effect. Anything done by a Repuglican is intended to victimize someone, especially the poor. Vicious anti-human thuggery for its own sake is their M.O.
Typically, unemployment recipients who fall afoul of the job-site registration lose about two weeks of benefits. When they follow through and register, their benefits are restored. Also, the balance of their unemployment benefits is not diminished, so they still get the full number of weeks they’re entitled to — although going two weeks without a check does suck, there’s no getting around that.
Gotta love Corbett. He even wants job registration requirements for the Medicaid expansion. How come there’s no parallel requirement for corporate tax cuts? You know: to get $1000 in corporate tax cuts, a company has to hire 10 new full-time equivalents with benefits. And for every such position they reduce, they have to give back the tax breaks. /snark
Isn’t that one of those half a million dollar watches on his wrist?
I agree with the discussion. I’m also the person who took the photo. It looks great on your page. Sure you can click on the photo, but having “photo by Hank Rogers” under my photo, or even asking my permission to use it, would have been nice of you. Not looking to start anything, just asking for proper etiquette.
Hank, I use a WordPress widget that searches Flickr and doesn’t pop up with the name of the person who took the picture. Always happy to add it if I have it!
Thank you much! I appreciate it. I regularly find out people are using my photos for their own use, without asking. They’re not always as cooperative as you, so I have had to use other ways of correcting them. Thanks again and keep up the good work!