One of the devastating effects of the current economic crisis is rising unemployment. In December 2008, California’s unemployment rate jumped up from 8.4 percent in November 2008 to 9.3 percent representing a loss of 78,200 jobs among the state’s non-farm workers.
Payroll jobs lost in November were 73,500 making a two-month total job loss of 151,800. The highest rate of job loss was, not surprisingly, in the construction industry, which has lost 10.8 percent, 92,600 workers, in a year. With the market full of unsold homes, there is little demand to build new ones.
For one reason or another, many of those out of a job do not qualify for unemployment insurance. There are numerous upsides to being your own boss and working independently, one of the downsides is that you are not covered by unemployment insurance; many Californians are finding that out the hard way. Others, rejected for unemployment insurance, but believing they should qualify, have filed appeals with the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, and that is another problem.
From the Los Angeles Times: “Tens of thousands of jobless Californians are awaiting action by a state appeals board swamped with cases, hindered by delays, mired in bureaucracy and tinged with scandal. Although the board is supposed to decide within 30 days whether the state wrongly denied an individual’s jobless benefits, less than 4 percent of complaints are finished by then, the U.S. Department of Labor says. In all, a record 68,135 appeals filed by out-of-work people and employers were awaiting action by the board as of January 23.”
California takes longer to resolve unemployment appeals than any other state except Virginia, according to Labor Department data, and the federal government has demanded that the state come up with a plan to fix the mess this month.”
Here are people who work for the state, but they do not get their work done. They should be fired immediately. They should also be denied other work and unemployment benefits and their appeals put at the very back of the line. Those appeals should be kept there and processed only after the new board members are all caught up. The Unemployment Appeals Board is one of the few government jobs of direct benefit to the public, so naturally it is dysfunctional.
I don’t think it would hurt if we just replaced everyone in the state government so we can get some new ideas and fresh blood. It’s obvious that the current crop of politicians and bureaucrats can’t or won’t get the job done. Every program designed to help the populace is bogged down in one way or another and the budget problems remain while they wait for the federal government to ride to the rescue with devalued bailout money still warm from the presses at the mint.
I know you’ve heard this before, but it is worth repeating: If California were an independent nation if would be the 10th largest economy on the world. What they don’t tell you is, if California were an independent nation, it would still be incapable of managing its affairs.
It’s high time we did a flip. Those in the employ of the state need to go on the unemployment lines and those on the unemployment lines need to be given those jobs. If the new employees were told that keeping their jobs depended on performance, not political patronage, briefly visiting the office while driving a government furnished car and using a government furnished cell phone or looking good for the cameras, things would get done.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. His column runs Tuesdays. Reach him at [email protected].
