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Speaker 1

00:00

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns unemployment. The thing that would absolutely happen to me if AT&T executives ever find out what I've been saying about them. But on the other hand, what are they gonna do?

Speaker 1

00:14

Look it up online? How? With their internet plan? And then what?

Speaker 1

00:18

Call someone? Using AT&T? I think I'm fine. Unemployment can be a traumatic event for anyone, even puppets.

Speaker 2

00:26

Why isn't Mommy at work today? Yesterday, I lost my job. And I'm not going to be working, at least for a little while.

Speaker 2

00:36

Is it because Elmo has too many toys? Oh, no, no, baby. None of this is your fault.

Speaker 3

00:43

It's nobody's fault.

Speaker 1

00:45

Well, well, hold on there. Are we absolutely sure that it's not Elmo's fault? I don't know how much that plane costs, but I do know that maintaining a crayon-colored liminal apartment where you live part-time with Dorothy and Pet Fish might be a problem for your now one-income family.

Speaker 1

01:00

So, it's not not your fault, Elmo. But also, quick shout out to Elmo's mom there. She's going through some shit, but she still managed to get her hair up in two-strand twists before she went to bed the night before. She's taking care of herself and protecting those edges.

Speaker 1

01:13

Drop the routine, Mae. Post a selfie on the gram. What are your holy grail products? Patent Beauty?

Speaker 1

01:18

Shea Moisture? Or are you still rocking an old school with a bottle of pink oil and a jar of jam? I see you, Elmo's mom. But even for the non-puppet population, unemployment is an especially pertinent topic right now.

Speaker 1

01:31

It's been almost exactly a year since the pandemic hit and tens of millions of people lost their jobs. Many of whom filed for unemployment insurance or unemployment. Our current system was created in the 1930s. And the basic idea was, like most insurance, to gather funds, particularly in the good times, so that there'd be money available to disperse in bad times.

Speaker 1

01:53

And to pay for all of this, states would tax employers. The concept was enthusiastically promoted at the time with educational films like this.

Speaker 4

02:01

To show how job insurance works, let's introduce Steve, a Louisiana worker who has just lost his job. Now, each week, the letter carrier brings Steve a check for half the normal weekly wage he used to earn. The maximum is $15, the minimum is $5, or three-fourths of his earnings.

Speaker 4

02:18

Job insurance. This is the way the state of Louisiana is doing its part in the nationwide crusade against unemployment, fear, and insecurity.

Speaker 1

02:29

Yes, attaboy, Steve! That newsreel, of course, from the makers of such classics as Amelia Earhart, The Woman Who Will Never Die, and How to Fight the Nazis, even though given this era's prevalent anti-Semitism, you most likely agree with a lot of what they're saying. But unemployment wasn't just created to save our nation's Steves from fear and insecurity, economists generally agree that unemployment insurance is actually 1 of the most effective policies for recovering from a recession.

Speaker 1

02:57

Which does make sense, because when you give the unemployed money, they tend not to hoard it offshore in the Caymans, they spend it on shit they need. In fact, analysis from past recessions shows that every dollar spent on unemployment benefits boosted economy-wide spending by as much as 2 dollars. So, It's a vital social safety net and has massive macroeconomic benefits. But despite that, over the years, our system has badly broken down.

Speaker 1

03:24

Something that became painfully clear this time last year when it was overwhelmed by new claims. We featured stories on this show of people having to call 50 times a day just to make an unemployment claim. But that was the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 5

03:37

Kentucky residents poured into the Capitol for their first chance to get an in-person meeting at a pop-up unemployment office since the pandemic began. Brianna Glass applied 3 months ago and is still having trouble getting payments. She stood in line yesterday just days after giving birth.

Speaker 2

03:54

I mean, I've called, I've emailed, I did everything I possibly could and still nothing.

Speaker 1

04:00

Holy shit. Waiting in line for unemployment just after giving birth is already appalling, but the very phrase, pop-up unemployment office, is truly alarming. Much like emergency crematorium or elephant forceps, It suggests things have gone terribly wrong and are about to get significantly worse.

Speaker 1

04:20

Now, some of last year's chaos was because state antiquated systems were simply overwhelmed. But it is a mistake to think of this merely as a technological problem. Because the system Underneath that shitty technology has been broken for years now, and sometimes deliberately. A quick way to measure the health of a state system is through its recipiency rates.

Speaker 1

04:39

That is basically the percentage of unemployed people that actually receive benefits. Now, it will never be 100 percent in this country because, rightly or wrongly, not everyone out of work is eligible. Generally, only those who are laid off are, and that is just over half of the unemployed. The rest, like those fresh out of school, or who quit voluntarily, or who were fired, are generally not covered.

Speaker 1

05:02

That is why experts say that under our current system, a good rule of thumb is that a state's recipiency rate should be around 50 percent. The problem is, nationally, even before this pandemic, we were at just 28 percent, and in some states like North Carolina and Florida, it was around 10 percent. Just think about what that means. Out of every 10 unemployed people in those states, only 1 is actually receiving benefits.

Speaker 1

05:28

If you boarded an airplane and learned that only 1 in 10 seats had an oxygen mask, you would wonder, who designed this system? Why did they make it this way? And how do I get the fuck out of here right now? So given that, tonight, let's look at our current unemployment system.

Speaker 1

05:44

And the first thing to know is, it is not 1 system. From the very start, states were given huge latitude in running their unemployment programs, meaning that we essentially have 53 completely different systems. 1 for each state, plus DC, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. And not only is that very inefficient, it means the level of benefits vary wildly.

Speaker 3

06:05

Massachusetts pays the most, up to $1,234 a week. Florida's maximum, $275 a week.

Speaker 1

06:13

That is a hell of a difference. And it's something that people might want to factor in if they're considering moving somewhere. Well, the climate seems nicer and the schools do seem decent, but before I go, let me just Google, if I lose my job, will this state let me starve?

Speaker 1

06:28

And it's not just where you live that determines your benefits, It also matters what you do. Because many part-time workers, plus independent contractors and gig workers, typically don't qualify for unemployment, which is absurd, given that those jobs make up a significant portion of our modern workforce. And incidentally, black workers are overrepresented in those type of jobs, just as they're overrepresented in the states with the least generous benefits, which might explain why black workers are more likely to be unemployed, but less likely to get unemployment benefits. And inequity was baked into the system from the very beginning.

Speaker 1

07:05

In the 1930s, agricultural and domestic workers were initially purposely excluded, meaning that 65 percent of black workers weren't covered by the program. It seems in the U.S., you can basically point to anything, ask, how is that racist, and get a specific historical answer. Freeways? Demolished black communities.

Speaker 1

07:23

Mickey Mouse? Based on minstrel shows. This toddler? Well, his name is Kendall, so it's only a matter of time.

Speaker 1

07:31

The point is, for myriad reasons, you may not be able to get unemployment, and even if you do get it, in many states, it might not be enough to live on. That is something the federal government seemed to basically acknowledge was a problem last year, when it suddenly temporarily expanded unemployment to cover more workers, and boosted benefits by $600 across the board. So, how did our system get this shitty? And whose fault is it?

Speaker 1

07:57

Is it Elmo's? The answer is not definitely no yet. But the truth is, a lot of the system's shortcomings were the result of deliberate choices. For 1, remember, businesses fund unemployment insurance through taxes that go into state trust funds.

Speaker 1

08:12

And after the last financial crisis drained those funds, states needed to restore them. But rather than do the sensible thing, raise taxes to get more money coming in, many opted instead just to cut benefits and make them harder to get. And as they did this, some in the national media cheered them on, like sentient plantation wedding Laura Ingram.

Speaker 2

08:32

It's simple human nature that people are a little less motivated as long as there's a check coming in. You know what my mom used to say, God rest her soul, when you're hungry, you'll figure out a way to eat. Right?

Speaker 2

08:46

Hunger, brings drive. Hunger for opportunity, hunger for, paycheck, hunger for, actual food, hunger for, a lifestyle, a way of life. Boy, you find it when there's no helping hand.

Speaker 1

09:02

Wow. When you're hungry, you'll figure out a way to eat. Well, sometimes, Laura. The problem is, sometimes not, and then it's a tragedy.

Speaker 1

09:11

There's a reason that famines aren't generally referred to as a lack of can-do attitude. And that kind of rhetoric has become pretty popular. Your most racist uncle has undoubtedly said something similar, probably to a waitress at Red Lobster completely ruining Mother's Day. And that speaks to the kind of attitudes toward the unemployed, ranging from simmering contempt to a callous disregard that lie beneath many states' aggressive policy changes over the past decade.

Speaker 1

09:37

Starting in 2012, Tennessee passed laws making the process to apply far more difficult. 1 justification being that somehow, loads of people ineligible for benefits were still getting them, which is complete nonsense, but something that the lieutenant governor back then, Ron Ramsey, certainly believed.

Speaker 6

09:54

If you were fired from your job for just cause, maybe even for stealing from your employer or chronic absenteeism, you shouldn't be able to draw unemployment. You don't get unemployment insurance if you fire for cause now. The law says they're not supposed to, but buddy, let me assure you, 9 times out of 10, they get their workers' comp.

Speaker 6

10:12

Or their unemployment. I can assure you that's the case. 9 times out of 10. I don't know about that.

Speaker 6

10:16

Okay, that was a Ron Ramsey blanket statement there. But there are plenty of examples that they get.

Speaker 1

10:23

Oh, yeah, don't worry. That's just a classic Ron Ramsey blanket statement. And you know you're in good hands when a government official lies enough to warrant a fucking trademark.

Speaker 1

10:33

Now, Ramsey also argued for drug testing the unemployed, saying, I don't think we need to be supporting that lifestyle with government money. Which is not just an obvious attempt to stigmatize, it also ignores that drugs are actually helpful in some jobs. Like, for instance, this 1. How do you think I talk this fast about things this depressing?

Speaker 1

10:52

What do you even think this white void is made out of? I'm surrounded by weapons-grade cocaine. And it wasn't just Tennessee. Lots of states put in new onerous requirements to make sure that people getting benefits deserved them.

Speaker 1

11:06

For instance, Nebraska started requiring 5 work search activities per week, which could include attending a resume writing class or taking a civil service exam, but at least 2 of which had to be applications for suitable work. But if there aren't 2 suitable work opportunities for you to apply for that week, you're shit out of luck. And the problem is, each additional requirement like that increases the chances that someone's gonna make a mistake or fail to check a box and get denied benefits that they need. And as they were doing this, states were also aggressively targeting fraud, which isn't in itself a bad idea.

Speaker 1

11:41

States do lose money to fraud. Before the pandemic hit, it wasn't honestly a lot, an average of 3 percent. But that actually surged last year when organized criminals targeted unemployment programs. And California alone said it lost 11 billion dollars.

Speaker 1

11:55

But the thing is, you have to be very precise in how you go after fraud. Because if a claim is wrongly flagged, it can be significantly delayed, and innocent people then get hurt. That is something that Kentucky's governor recently found when he shared what he clearly thought was a pretty flagrant example.

Speaker 7

12:13

We had somebody apply for unemployment for Tupac Shakur here in Kentucky. And that person probably thought they were being funny. They probably did.

Speaker 7

12:22

Except for the fact that because of them, we've gotta go through so many other claims.

Speaker 1

12:27

Okay. He made a very confident public example of that because he knew no 1 could be called Tupac Shakur, right? That is just not a name that people have, except, of course, famously for this guy, but we all know he's living in the Falkland Islands right now. No 1 else could have that name.

Speaker 1

12:42

It's absolutely impossible. I think you know what's coming next.

Speaker 7

12:48

Now somebody an apology tonight. Last night I spent a little bit of time talking about fraudulent claims holding us up. I mentioned an individual that had filed in the name of Tupac Shakur.

Speaker 7

13:02

I didn't know, and it's my fault, that we have a Kentuckian who goes by Malik, whose name is Tupac Shakur. I talked to him on the phone today. I apologize.

Speaker 1

13:15

Yeah. Yeah, I bet you did. And I will say, that is just further proof that nothing good can ever come from a middle-aged white man knowing anything about rap, period. We just can't handle it.

Speaker 1

13:25

That's how you get Macklemore. And if you're thinking, hey, what's so bad about Macklemore? You are very much part of the problem here. And some mistakes happened on a much bigger scale.

Speaker 1

13:36

Michigan rolled out a new system in 2013 which flagged tens of thousands of cases for fraud. Unfortunately, a review 4 years later found it had a 70 percent error rate. Meaning they falsely accused more than 40,000 people of fraudulently claiming benefits, and had been wrongfully recouping massive amounts of money from many of them. And the problem with the word recoup there is it sounds kind of bloodless, until you realize that those people were required to repay their benefits at a 400 percent penalty, which is just brutal.

Speaker 1

14:09

It's like a hospital mistakenly thinking that a patient wrote a bad check and deciding to recoup their fucking hip replacement. Hey, I didn't do anything wrong, and I really needed that. And if you want to see how all of this, poor technology, deep benefit cuts, and absurd eligibility requirements can come together to break a vital social program, look no further than Florida. America's vestigial tail.

Speaker 1

14:35

Florida's previous governor and Slenderman understudy, Rick Scott, took a hatchet to the state's program while in power. When he was sworn in, employers that year paid an average of $319 per employee in unemployment taxes. By the time he left office, they were paying just $50 per employee, the lowest in the country, and less than one-fifth the national average. And to balance those cuts out, as Scott proudly told a conference of young Republicans in 2019.

Speaker 1

15:02

He found ways to keep a lot of Floridians off unemployment.

Speaker 3

15:07

About 22 million people live in Florida. How many people today, just throw out a guess, how many people when I left office were on unemployment benefits? Wow.

Speaker 3

15:19

10 million's 1. Anybody else? Sixty-one thousand. All right?

Speaker 3

15:27

Yeah. -$1.1 million. -$1.1 million.

Speaker 1

15:30

Wow. That is some nervous applause. Even in that room, you can feel people thinking, wait, 61,000 out of 22 million? Oh, that feels way too low.

Speaker 1

15:42

Is what he did terrible? Are we all terrible? Oh, never mind. We're clapping now.

Speaker 1

15:46

Okay. I do feel better when we clap. Now, to achieve those numbers, Scott employed all the tactics you've seen. Flora started requiring that people document contacts with 5 employers per week, reduced total benefits by slashing the number of weeks you could receive them, and through some extra obstacles, like requiring applicants to complete a 45-question skills assessment, testing their reading, math, and research skills, a policy so clearly meant to impede access, the Department of Labor's Civil Rights Division determined it violated federal non-discrimination law.

Speaker 1

16:17

The state also forced everyone to file online and rolled out an expensive new claim system which was immediately plagued with glitches. And despite all Rick Scott's reassurances at the time that they would be fixed, they pretty clearly weren't. Because the system crashed so badly last year, they had to suddenly shift to paper applications, which, in the middle of a pandemic, brought a whole different set of problems.

Speaker 3

16:40

It was near bedlam at the John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah. A crowd in uncomfortably close quarters shoved its way forward with people desperate to get their hands on 1 of these, an application for unemployment benefits.

Speaker 2

16:53

I am so scared.

Speaker 4

16:54

What's going on?

Speaker 2

16:55

I'm scared for my life, just for an application.

Speaker 1

16:59

Yeah, I'm scared for your life too, just watching that. And it's a testament to both this pandemic and Florida's ridiculous system that I feel the same white-knuckle terror watching people line up for unemployment applications as I do when watching a daredevil jump a motorcycle over a row of buses. Although, to be honest, it's probably only a matter of time before Florida makes bus jumping a requirement for applying for unemployment there, too.

Speaker 1

17:24

And while you could argue that this was just incompetence, you could also argue it was completely deliberate. Many Floridians actually suggested that last year, 1 of whom was Rick Scott's successor.

Speaker 8

17:35

I think the goal was, for whoever designed it, was let's put as many kind of pointless roadblocks along the way so people just say, out of the hell with it, I'm not gonna do that. But I think definitely, in terms of how it was internally constructed, you know, it was definitely done in a way to lead to the least number of claims being paid out.

Speaker 1

17:54

Wow. I gotta say, it's kind of weird to hear this asshole accurately critique this asshole. It'd be like hearing, Twitter really needs to take care of its Nazi problem from Mark Zuckerberg. Sure, in isolation, you're making a good point.

Speaker 1

18:08

You just happen to be a fundamentally flawed messenger. Because before you give DeSantis too much credit there, it is worth knowing that a state investigation found that auditors had flagged problems with Florida's system in 2015, 2016, and 2019, and neither the Scott nor DeSantis administrations fixed the problems. And Florida's deep and deliberate neglect of its unemployment system caused people there real pain.

Speaker 9

18:35

If the unemployment claim finally went through, we would be able to pay our bills no problem. But we tried to file for unemployment online, And it was an absolute nightmare. I constantly have a nauseous feeling in my stomach.

Speaker 9

18:52

I try to distract myself from it, but especially at night. I'm sorry, I can't even put it into words. I'm just... I don't want Emmett to see me upset.

Speaker 9

19:04

I've been fighting really hard to hold it together.

Speaker 1

19:07

That's terrible. And the infuriating thing is how completely preventable it is. We could help her.

Speaker 1

19:14

It'd be better for her, it'd actually be better for the broader economy, and yet we are actively choosing not to do it, which is a fucking disgrace. So how can we fix this shit going forward? Well, first, there can no longer be any argument that our current system is broken. Again, the government's actions last year, raising payments and scrambling to make sure that the system covered more workers is a pretty public admission that it was fucked.

Speaker 1

19:41

So now, we have to fix it. In the very short term, States need funding to upgrade their broken technology. They also need to remove a lot of the stupid obstacles that prevent applicants who need help from getting it. But in the long term, we need some big changes here.

Speaker 1

19:57

Many experts agree, if the U.S. Got a do-over, It'd be much better to go with 1 federal system than 53 separate ones. So, we should probably do that. Among other things, that would stop states from being able to slash their programs in the name of being pro-business and engaging in a race to the bottom on taxes.

Speaker 1

20:15

But, if we are not going to federalize, and at the moment, it seems like we're not, Congress should, at the very least, be setting a basic standard for unemployment benefits that states cannot drop below. All of which is really just a long way of saying that we need to take all of the energy that we have been pouring in to making sure that people who don't deserve payments don't get them, and put at least as much energy into making sure that people who really need them do. And to not make big changes after the flaws of this system have been so brutally exposed over the last year would be unforgivable. Because if we don't fix it, we have absolutely nobody to blame but ourselves.

Speaker 1

20:56

And possibly, Elmo. I'm not sure exactly how, but the whole thing does somehow still seem like his fault.