Overheard...

Overheard...  Yesterday Debbie and I stopped for lunch at a local institution (who is blameless, and therefore shall not be dragged into this).  As we tucked into our sandwiches, a pair of girls came in and sat at a table adjacent to us.  They looked to me to be in their 20s, but from subsequent overheard conversation it was clear they were high school seniors (and, we hope, younger than 20).  Shortly thereafter, a pair of boys came in and sat at a table adjacent to both us and the two girls.  From overheard conversation, it became clear that the two boys were also seniors, in the same high school as the two girls – all parties knew each other well.

One of the girls was trying very hard to keep a conversation going between the four of them.  She'd ask leading questions, obviously hoping to draw the boys into a conversation.  Considering her age, I thought she was actually quite skilled at this, and I was half-listening to the chatter mostly to admire both her skill and her persistence.  Then she asked the one question that sticks in my mind (well, actually, it's the answer that sticks).  She said, to one of the boys:

Hey, are you going to get a job after you graduate?

To which he replied:

No, I can get more money from unemployment.

Oh, my.  That's just wrong on multiple levels!

I have no idea what this boy's previous employment experience was, but if I'm reading the California eligibility requirements correctly, he'd have to have been employed within the past 12 months to be eligible for unemployment insurance (UI) at all.  However, I'm not at all confident that I'm reading them correctly (they are complex and poorly written), nor am I confident that our state government is smart enough to enforce such a requirement.

Then there's the question of the amount of money paid by UI.  Surely it's not equal even to minimum wage?  According to the previously linked document, the maximum UI rate is $450 per week (or $11.25 per hour for a 40 hour week).  Elsewhere I see that California's current minimum wage is $8/hour.  So yes, it is possible to make more money through UI than through full time employment at minimum wage.

So was this boy's assertion accurate?  I can't say for certain, but it does appear that it is possible that he was correct.  If so, that is just wrong – it makes no sense at all for any UI scheme to provide the perverse incentive of making UI more lucrative than a job.

Then there's the question of the boy's attitude, his moral stance: why does he think it's acceptable to make a choice like that?  Not only acceptable in a minimalist way, either – but acceptable enough that he was willing to proclaim it in a public setting, to a girl he obviously thought well of.  I find that quite shocking, a measure of just how far our society's fabric has torn in the period of my life.  My high school peers would have thought that choosing to go on UI instead of getting a job was shameful.  So shameful that they would have gone out of their way to keep that choice private and secret.  Making such a choice public would have had a severe stigma attached to it, a public shaming that nobody would have wanted to endure.  Contrast that with this boy's straightforward reckoning that choosing to go on the dole was more lucrative than a job, and therefore would be his choice.  From the chatter subsequent to his announcement of his choice, there didn't appear to be any shame attached to it by any of the four youths.  It was the logical, rational thing to do...

I sure hope that what I overheard yesterday was an aberration.  If it was not – if it's really an accurate reflection of our young people's attitudes – then I am much less hopeful about my country's future...