It's been nearly 3 months since my position as a corporate blogger was terminated. I remember my first call to Unemployment. It was a grueling 30 minute wait (now the wait is much longer) to speak to a representative. The representative who took my call sounded utterly defeated. I let him vent about the woes of the unemployed in Wisconsin.
He relayed to me in a tone of dismay that he believed we are in a depression, "They say we are in a recession, but I believe we are in a depression. The jobless claims are skyrocketing. I tell people they should think about relocating and moving where the jobs are, because they are struggling here."
By the time I got off the call I was telling the unemployment representative to hang in and thanked him for helping me and others.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate, weighing in at 5.8 percent is less than the national average of 7.1 percent. Now of course these figures don't account for the people who are off the system records now: people who are on welfare or those who can no longer receive unemployment benefits.
Wisconsin is now facing it's largestdeficit budget ever, $5.8 billion. The new stimulus package has a proposed $4.2 billion earmarked for Wisconsin. I suspect their will be a tax increase as they are already looking at taxes business revenues online. Having moved from Illinois I can tell you it took my breathe away when I received my first paycheck with my state income tax deductions.
It was a hard knock lesson and budget shocking.
Is this really the answers? Does anyone have any answers? Throw some money at it (which would be taxpayer money- when they approve a stimulus we pay for it), increase taxes, force employment furloughs on workers.
I'm serious. I am a glass half full kind a gal. Certainly there are some Wisconsin bloggers who have some thoughts on how to solve the problem. Maybe the answer is that there is no easy answer from government and we best start looking inward to start resolving some of these monetary problems.
At least it's not yet as dire as California. We aren't having to ration our water.
Related Recommended Posts:
