Word: joblessness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...water cooler when they were working. Indeed, in many cases compensation checks have been handed out too routinely. They are going not only to people who deserve and desperately need the money, but also to some who do not. Among them: people who work part-time but collect jobless benefits, others who willfully evade work, and still others who make claims under false names and Social Security numbers...
Such cheaters are a small minority of the 10.2 million Americans who got jobless checks during the fiscal year just ended from individually run state compensation programs. But they are throwing an added burden on a system that is under severe strain. Despite a year of economic recovery, legitimate joblessness is still high. Last week the Government reported that 7.5 million people, or 7.9% of the labor force, were out of work in August, v. 7.8% in July. Total payments to the jobless swelled from about $5.6 billion in fiscal 1974 to an estimated $18.3 billion in the 12 months...
...impossible to pinpoint the number of cheaters who have slipped through in Michigan and other states. A Georgia official estimates that at the peak last year 15% to 20% of jobless-benefit payouts in the state were going to people who had no crying need of assistance. But that would include housewives who worked for a while, then quit and legally collected full unemployment benefits. Most estimates of outright fraud now range nationally from 2% to 5%. The Federal Government's latest figures show that less than 1% of claims are made illegitimately-but that counts only the minority...
...great majority of cheaters know exactly what they are doing. They are wily and skilled in the law and its many loopholes. They know how to take advantage of unemployment officials who are inclined to give jobless people the benefit of a doubt. Their justification to themselves is that the economic system that resulted in their unemployment somehow owes them a living. Says Edward Kelly, a Massachusetts unemployment official: "It [unemployment compensation] is a fringe benefit they feel they should take advantage...
...Manhattan secretary who was having personal problems, quit her job last year. Her employer, in sympathy with her plight, listed her as fired, thus enabling Caroline to collect $90 a week in unemployment benefits for 65 weeks (in New York, most employees who quit voluntarily are ineligible for jobless benefits). Unemployment officials insisted that she visit prospective employers regularly. But her former boss had deliberately made Caroline difficult to place by saying that her relatively high salary was for work performed as a file clerk instead of a secretary. That suited Caroline fine. Says she: "I needed a vacation. Besides...