Unemployment Extension: Senate Democrats Introduce Yearlong Reauthorization Of Extended Jobless Aid

Partial Repost: I have been Blessed to have a career that supports my family with a livable wage & able to keep my job of over 10 years. But I've attempted to help SO many that have lost their jobs. America is in a bad economic state. Our income distributi­on used to be a nice hour glass shape with a healthy bunch at the top...a middle class & most others at the bottom. It's now like a tear drop. A concentrat­ed (1%) of wealth & greed at the top and everyone at the bottom. Bush's tax cuts took the middle class away. Most wealthy have their income in capital gains which is taxed lightly. They shelter their money & make those that have less foot the bill. Not to mention thanks to the greed...ma­ny jobs are outsourced to countries that charge less for production which cut the working class down to size as well. So unfair & unjust.



Then we have CEOs making 833 times that of a minimum wage worker. Do people not do their homework before making crazy accusation­s & realize the inequity in America? Is everyone's head in a hole about it? It took one hard-worki­ng, well-educa­ted person 19 months to land a job making less $20,000 less than what he was used to. He was willing to work McDonald's had nothing come up but even THEY won't hire my 17yr old daughter because they said older adults are overwhelmi­ng in numbers.
About Unemployment Extension
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Working Mothers: Balancing Two Spaces

The economic reorganization of bread winners in the traditional family setting have left many workers in the US to lead unbalanced lives in reference to financial strains, inadequate care, and other barriers that encourage economic insecurity, threaten child well-being and promote gender inequality in the workplace. With a shift in domestic roles, more mothers are in the labor market along with fathers and more fathers are sharing in childcare. But whereas men also experience time binds in balancing work and family life, it is women who bear the brunt of the burden.

Work and life has been most notably out of balance for women who endure the brunt of the work-family conflict due to socially-constructed beliefs surrounding gender and the impacts of these beliefs. A working mother is faced with heightened tension when the Ideal Worker norm[1] conflicts with the Motherhood norm[2] (Drago, 2007). So there is a socially-constructed motherhood norm where a working mother is expected to figure out a way to efficiently care for her children but she is also expected to work for earnings while making sure to be an ideal employee as a requisite to enhance the prospect of job advancement. In order to enhance her job advancement prospects, she must learn to make sure her family life does not conflict with her work life, and she must do so privately with limited help from the benefits that government mandates via family-friendly work polices such as the Family & Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA). So if mothers are all mostly in the workforce with fathers...who's watching the children? Why is this a private problem when every human product born to a country is released into it's society?

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[1] The Ideal Worker norm—a belief among managers and professionals in total commitment to career, and high rewards for this commitment (Drago, p. 7).

[2] The Motherhood norm—a society-wide belief that women should be mothers, and perform unpaid family care and low-paid care for others in need (Drago, p. 7).

Works Cited: Drago, Robert W. Striking a Balance. Boston, MA: Dollars & Sense, 2007.

Society's Playing Field: Who's side is Government on?

Government was instituted or formed as a means to protect people from themselves and to organize & implement instruction for future activity (whether economic or just everyday living).  People want things done without thinking it through or weighing the consequences of their actions. But keeping people ignorant to being conscious of what they actually need is a form of control, exploitation and maintenance of the status quo. Government protects the people that speak the loudest. No guaranteed security for the powerless or poor. The bottom line is that where there is money to be made...or economic activity, there are security  & integrity breaches.

For instance, American society has a dominate thought on welfare policy that says social aid takes away from the governing of things, the economy, etc. The status quo has us believing that. They want citizens to believe that it’s the fault of so many people NEEDING welfare and that all of them enjoy being on it. Sure, people abuse it as well as other ‘charity’ aid but if you guaranteed the average man a chance at a great education without selling his soul or a well paying job to support his family ...you would in turn eliminate some crime and other social ills that plague our society. But let them tell it...ALL welfare recipients like their dependent positions. Who wouldn't like free money in which to pay only a 5th of your basic needs with? Government diverts the underlying issues and this is why urban chaos is imminent even today.

 

Cat Have Their Tongue?

Dialogue has been identified as being the barrier to policy makers and the public when addressing community issues. It is thought to give knowledge to both the policy maker and the public by allowing each other to hear different sides of an issue in order to extract the knowledge needed for action and input. However, after thinking about all of the community meetings in which I've attended, I was left wondering exactly how much dialogue and ‘knowledge’ goes into decision-making. Is it illusionary to believe that a policy maker with no direct experience with an issue will be able to understand how the issue impedes others? If this policy maker needs other people to help facilitate urgency or ‘frame’ an issue for his or her understanding, exactly how is this ‘knowledge’ used?

Also, I have previously learned that policy makers do not even use the various research that social scientists provide as ‘knowledge’ for decision-making and this concept was made clear at many a policy meeting I’ve attended. Unless a policy maker has a unique situation (directly connected by experience or well-informed on the issue) in which to effectively weigh options for solutions, he or she may make decisions based on his or her own mind thought. As in, using their own value system and beliefs to assess and address a problem and choosing to ignore any sort of ‘knowledge’ that does not mesh with what they believe to be true even if it is not deliberate. The policy maker will miss out on valuable information that could inform the decision-making process and I find this to be a significant complexity in policy and planning and I am anxious to research more on how it’s dealt with before joining that world.