OK, Break's Over; Everyone Get Back To Work!

With the recent news that the US Unemployment Rate dropped below 9% comes some collateral damage.   The Employment Security Commission of the State of North Carolina (US)  recently posted the following information telling its residents that the 99 weeks of unemployment benefits were no longer available to those still looking for jobs:

"Please be advised that due to the recent decline in the North Carolina Unemployment Rate, the state no longer meets the Federal and State requirements of the Extended Benefits Program. In accordance with Federal and State law, the Employment Security Commission cannot pay any Extended Benefit claims for weeks later than April 16, 2011. "

North Carolina, the home of NASCAR, Country and God, will take this all in stride.  Pick themselves up and get jobs.  I don't expect the same whimper of acceptance will occur when similar facts begin affecting the big cities.  Stay tuned.

The interesting thing about playing golf is that sometimes you get paired up with someone you don't know.  Last year, I played golf with a 99 weeker (a guy that was well on his way to collecting 2 years of unemployment checks from the government).   He had no problem paying the $65 for the round of golf because his wife worked and her employer was providing all the medical benefits for both of them.  It didn't seem to bother him that I was paying for his vacation through my tax dollars.  I didn't make a big deal of it because I didn't want to be swinging 5 irons at each other on the back nine.   After all-- this is a civilized country!   However, I did remind him that if his wife worked at a job well enough to have generous benefits that he needed to get prepared to write a check to the Federal Government because unemployment is taxable income and his wife's job probably puts them in a tax paying bracket.

So as he and many Americans are now filling out their Federal Tax forms, I am smiling at the prospect of him having to pay taxes on his unemployment benefits because such payments do not have any Federal Tax withholding requirements. Therefore, he probably spent every dollar he got not realizing that some percentage of it was going to have to be returned to the Federal Government in the form of taxes.