Losing a job is bad enough, but your unemployment benefits can vary wildly depending on where you live. The L.A. Times compared unemployment benefits to the cost of living and picked the twenty best and worst cities to be unemployed.
The 10 Best Cities
1. Pittsburgh, Pa.—$539 per week
2. Charlotte, N.C.—$457 per week
3. Raleigh, N.C.—$457 per week
4. Boston, Mass.—$600 per week
5. Philadelphia, Pa.—$539 per week
6. Providence, R.I.—$531 per week
7. Salt Lake City, Utah—$427 per week
8. San Antonio, Texas—$378 per week
9. Seattle, Wash.—$515 per week
10. Houston, Texas—$378 per week
The 10 Worst Cities
10. Los Angeles, Calif.—$450 per week
9. Nashville, Tenn.—$275 per week
8. Kansas City, KS-MO—$280 per week
7. Tampa, Fla.—$275 per week
6. Orlando, Fla.—$275 per week
5. Washington, D.C.—$359 per week
4. San Francisco, Calif.—$450 per week
3. Phoenix, Ariz.—$240 per week
2. Miami, Fla.—$275 per week
1. New York, N.Y.—$405 per week
If your job falls prey to the ongoing not-recession, read up on our tips for saving cash and consider potential ways to make the most of unemployment.
Best and worst cities for unemployment pay [L.A. Times]
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Thanks to everyone else who has been cool headed enough to eloquently explain the system to ect.
Ect, as Mercury stated, you obviously have no idea what the job market in this country is like right now, or really anything about what it means to be less than wealthy. I can’t be nice enough, like many others, to say I don’t wish the first hand knowledge on you. Take your bootstraps and shove them.
@@MercuryPDX: Sweet jesus yes. the really annoying thing is that for everything that I have interviewed for I’ve gotten the “you were really great and we’d love to hire you, but this person had more experience. you were our second choice!”. even for an internship! isn’t the whole point that you’re getting an internship to get experience?!
I was pretty blow away at how difficult the whole process was for getting the unemployment, i was in school for a grad program at the time i applied and they basically said if i wasn’t willing to drop classes to work (this is 6 weeks into the term), they wouldn’t give me benefits. the only saving grace was that my classes fell outside of the hours i would have to be available for the work i was looking for. but seriously? how crazy is that? in order to get unemployment you have be willing to abandon your efforts towards self improvement?!
it makes me so uselessly mad when people talk about social services like they are some freebee-give away party. most of the time they are degrading, time consuming, restricting processes that in many ways constrain your ability to make personal improvements.
@etc.
Your arguments fail. You have not in any way provided an alternative that will assist anyone on this site.
You also fail to grasp the purpose of why unemployment insurance exists.
Unemployment insurance exists to keep people in the workforce plain and simple. Bully for you that you are willing to be homeless at the drop of a hat.
Unemployment is a problem for any govenment and homeless unemployed are dangerous in large numbers.
Once people lose their homes or place to live it is far more difficult for them to reclaim a high paying job in society. You know high paying jobs where people pay taxes.
The government does NOT want you to work for 5.15 at walmart if you were pulling down 60k the year before. YOU will become the drain on society by snubbing social benefits you paid into.
Unemployment insurance benefits the government and your local community. At least some people are smart enough to see the benefit.
Trying to convince people to stop taking that benefit is pathetic and counter productive. Especially since it has such positive results.
@etc: Where did I misrepresent your opinions? These are your own words:
“What happened to dignity and pride? I would starve before going on unemployment.”
“If you are on unemployment, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“The reason I take care of my dog is because it doesn’t possess the ability to sustain himself. Are you a dog?”
I referred to the above attitude as ruthless, cold, callous, mercenary and (hopefully) hyperbolic. From where I stand, that still doesn’t seem like a misrepresentation. My other post was not in reply to you–methinks etc doth protest too much. It was a general statement about people who cannot set aside their pride to ask a fellow human for help when needed (although I suppose if the shoe fits…).
I still wonder what you would do in my friend’s situation, or what you would have advised him to do. He’s a waiter and an actor (I know, surprising combination), not someone whose income really allows for a “safety net.” So in harsh economic times, do we turn our backs on our fellow man and let him fall? What is so repugnant to you about unemployment compensation that does not offend you about taxpayer-funded social programs like the “free” food, education and child support (child care?) you champion?
@Archavious: Three words: cost of living. $15k in Boston is hardly living like a Rockerfeller. As has been stated many times before, unemployment insurance is not a way for “lazy” people to live on the dole. It’s a way for people to keep their heads above water until they can find another job.
I sincerely hope etc and the other Bootstrap Bill Social Darwinists never get laid off and have to pay rent, gas and grocery bills with “dignity”.
@etc: You’re paying unemployment insurance out of your paycheck and withheld taxes the entire time you’re employed. It’s your money, should you be unfortunate enough to require it.
@MercuryPDX: As a fellow survivor of WA State UI System, I have to say that your description of the experience is completely and totally accurate. As a software developer with over 20 years of experience, they had no clue on how to help me. I just resigned myself early on to play their stupid game, collect my check (again from money that I paid and my employer paid), and search as best as I could on my own. My time dealing with them was back in late 2003 into early 2004. It’s probably changed very little since then.
I’ve found the most bootstrappers have a pretty nice support system, be it familial or ethnic, and can’t understand the plight of people without one.
Unemployment insurance is a social necessity. It helps preserve the strength of our economy. Capitalism is one of the most misunderstood concepts in America. The free market doesn’t mean that everyone who can not thrive must suffer.
@MercuryPDX: That sounds a lot like the BS that they make you go through in Arkansas. $325 a week MAX. And you have to go through the “job training” crap. I have collected unemployment once and it was a nightmare. I was sent through before anyone else because I get “veterans preference.” Big f…ing deal. I would have rather been in combat. They just couldn’t deal with someone that had been in school for over six years. MPA degree, advanced law enforcement certifications, etc., etc. The system isn’t set up to help people like that.
ETC….
You need to live in a world of reality. I have had people with all kinds of advanced degrees apply for ENTRY level positions with my company because their companies went belly up. Look at how many unemployed MBA’s and MPA’s there are today. Thousands! Many are going to community colleges to get tech training to get a better paying job.
You mention dignity and pride. I don’t think you know the meaning of either. I WORKED the entire time that I was in college. Not to have spending money, but to take care of my family. Fifty hours a week and I took a semester hour load of from 15 to 18.
As for your statement that “even the poorest of the poor have some kind of safety net” I have to ask, “have you ever been poor?” Have you gone to bed hungry and without the slightest prospect of eating the next day? Have you lived in fear? Shut the hell up then. There is such a thing as Karma and she is a sadistic bitch and when you have nothing, I want you to remember the pathetic remarks that you made here today.
Unemployment is a temporary insurance to help you cover some perks while you get back into the workforce. I’m not ashamed of taking unemployment, if I get fired, I already have plenty of crap to worry about. That way you spend all your time and resources on getting a similar or higher-paying job instead of having to be stuck on a survival job. In the end, the government benefits more if you’re in a nice job than a survival job (more taxes to them).
the top 10 are more than i make, maybe i should go on unemploment
they call $2200/mo in LA one of the worst? Are you kidding me!? You can live very nice and easy on that much here. If you dont have a job, dont live in a downtown loft. When I first moved here i made $1600/mo after taxes and was still able to live well. Plus they neglected to mention how easy it is to get a job here in comparison to other smaller cities. All this LA hating is biased.
Unemployment benefits saved my life. I was on it for a month and a half after getting blindsided during a downsizing. I felt no shame in accepting it, as that is what it’s there for. That’s why I paid into it. So I could eat and not have to borrow money from my parents to pay my rent. And if the rest of the money I paid into it is going to help someone else in my old situation, God bless it.
@iluvhatemail: For all the talk of how hard it is to get by in LA, I’m shocked at how many available jobs there are in “the business”.
@etc: Compassionate conservatism.
@etc: Question. Did you bother to read the Consumerist Commentator’s Code of Conduct, or is your reading comprehension so subpar that you couldn’t comprehend it?
If the former, check it out: it’ll make the site better. If the latter, give us a shout-out and we’ll be happy to explain it using shorter words.
I think what etc needs to argue for is _privatizing_ unemployment insurance. That is to say, instead of the government running the program, private companies would, kinda like health insurance.
@etc: Surely you realize that everyone is required to pay into UI. People are also required to pay into Social Security. I may well be better off stuffing money into my mattress when it comes to getting laid off or retiring, but if I’m paying into the system anyway, don’t I deserve to receive my benefit when my time comes? I haven’t ever actually received unemployment benefits, but I don’t think badly of anyone who does.
@Trai_Dep: I don’t think we need to worry about user etc reading comprehension skills as his ability to comment is currently disabled. I guess Roz our new moderator didn’t much appreciate him making personal attacks against a bunch of us last nite.
Too far down to ever be read, but still –
“1. Pittsburgh, Pa.-$539 per week” Fine, but watch the calendar. A few years back I applied for unemployment insurance in Lancaster PA and was told that claims are only processed once a quarter, so I’d have to wait over two months before getting a check because the period had ended just over two weeks earlier.
@samurailynn: Not all states make you pay into unemployment. I don’t ever recall doing it after living in 4 different states. I know in Mass. the employers pay all of it. I didn’t even realize that some states make the employee pay as well.
@etc:
May we assume that you also don’t file claims on employer-sponsered health insurance (health insurance also being a form of wealth redistribution, in which relatively healthy people with low health-care costs subsidize the much higher costs of treating a small number of seriously ill patients)?
@newfenoix: There is such a thing as Karma and she is a sadistic bitch.
Not only is she sadistic, but from what I’ve seen, she also tends to have a keen sense of irony. We’ll probably never hear from etc. again, but damn, I’d like to see how that one turns out.
@ShanghaiLil: He probably thinks that paying a decent wage is “wealth redistribution” and that debtors’ prisons should be brought back.
@MercuryPDX: Your use of “your” and “you’re” were correct the first time. “Your” is possessive and “you’re” is the contraction of “you are.”
Jebus. Trolls run amok on Consumerist today. I’m sorry I peeked in on this thread. Yikes.
@LogicalOne: I know…. I was understandably agitated.