Talk:Unemployment benefits

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment edit

  This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rgillum121. Peer reviewers: Rgillum121.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment edit

  This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GardeniaSol, Jpreciado97.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Germany edit

I have moved to Talk:Unemployment benefit/Germany a badly translated (probably mostly machine-translated) bunch of content about Germany. Someone should work out where it came from; if it's from a copyrighted source, please handle it as a copyvio, if it's from (say) the German Wikipedia, please note that here. Assuming it is legal, cleanup or retranslation seem about equally likely. -- Jmabel 19:10, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

It's a translation of part of this:http://www.sam.uni-trier.de/VWL_Sam/lehre-files/ss2004/SAM-II-Uebung-SS-2004-Definitionen-2.pdf and thus copyvio. Saintswithin 09:05, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia:Copyright problems

Talk:Unemployment benefit/Germany. This is text that I pulled out of Unemployment benefit because it was obvious machine translation. User:Saintswithin reports 09:00, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC) that it is a translation of part [1] and thus copyvio. This has polluted the history of Unemployment benefit, I have no idea what to do about that. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:52, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

End moved text

Given that the there were a number of edits made to the article before the section's removal, the history cannot be cleaned in any reasonable manner. I've simply deleted the offending holding page. -- Cyrius| 04:16, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hitler looked after unemployed Germans. You may not like it, but it's a fact. 78.151.27.9 (talk) 11:44, 2 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Technical analysis of unemployment benefits edit

Where did this section come from? It looks suspiciously like original research to me. Could someone cite a source (or sources) for this? Just curious.

Good point, ref was Labor Economics, Second edition, 2002, McGraw-Hill. I'll add it now. Martin 20:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Interesting section, buy I am worried that it could be misleading. I'm not an econimist, but the budget line seems too simplified. For example, there is no allowance for overtime pay. Also, I realise that wages earned will have a lower net value as unemployment benefits are reduced with income, but I still would have expected the slope to shift to GF and not GH. Then again, more unemployment benefits equals higher social taxes. Finally, I find it subjective that the first paragraph comes to the conclusion that a 40 hour week is optimal. Ga2re2t 23:19, 18 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Pogy edit

Why does "Pogy" redirect here? The Pogy is a game fish found in Lake Tahoe, California, and has nothing to do with unemployment benefits. --130.126.68.79 04:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Pogey is slang for UI, EI or welfare — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.132.8.192 (talk) 17:35, 19 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Wrong year for the Great Depression? edit

The History section under United Kingdom says: Over 2 million people were relying on the payments by 1921, as Britain was experiencing the Great Depression.

Isn't this 10 years too early? Or was there a different time period for the UK? The Great Depression article says the period started in 1929. --Fandyllic 9:55 PM PDT 25 Oct 2006

Swedish and Italian unemployment funds edit

I have added linked pages with more datas about Swedish and Italian unemployment benefits--Dans-eng 20:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Bahrain just got UI edit

If anyone wants to include that here. Vranak

If you know anything about it, just do it or leave a link to some data so that somebody else can do it. Thanks.--Dans-eng 00:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Article needs work edit

I added a reference tag to the top of this article today because it is a huge article and has very few references. There is one citation and I see that the microeconomic analysis section is supported by a source, but I don't think that's enough. There are lots of factual assertions in this article that should be backed up by their own inline citations. Additionally, there microeconomic analysis section should have inline citations given its very specific nature and while it does have a source, there is not currently anything in the article to indicate that it is the source for that section.

As far as the economic section in particular goes, I understand it, but just barely. Having taken a couple semesters of econ in college and actually studying what this section is talking about, I get it. However, I don't get it very well. It could really use some work to be more readily understandable because as it is, it is really tough to follow. -Dekkanar 22:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Quick particular: replace "para-governmental" w/ non-jargon 128.220.29.101 (talk) 01:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

"24 Monate" "Arbeitslosengeld I" "Ruettgers" (CDU)/"Beck" (SPD) edit

Der "Spiegel 50/2007" rechnet mit "30.000" Potentiellen "Arbeitslosengeld I" Empfängern die "24 Monate" "Arbeitslosengeld I" erhalten sollen.

2003 – 58 Jahre alt = 1945 (2007 61 Jahre alt; Rente mit 65 Jahren 2009)

http://dip.bundestag.de/btd/14/088/1408800.pdf  Page 25 (Quelle Wikipedia : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographischer_Wandel)                                            
  • Jahrgang 1945 960.000 58 Jahre 480.000 Frauen 480.000 Männer Rente 2009 2003
  • Offiziell erfasst beider "Bundesagentur fuer Arbeit" 580.000 Menschen*
  • Jahrgang 1946 940.000 57 Jahre 470.000 Frauen 470.000 Männer Rente 2010 2004
  • Jahrgang 1947 730.000 56 Jahre 350.000 Frauen 380.000 Männer Rente 2011 2005
  • Jahrgang 1948 700.000 55 Jahre 400.000 Frauen 370.000 Männer Rente 2012 2006
  • Jahrgang 1949 860.000 54 Jahre 430.000 Frauen 430.000 Männer Rente 2013 2007
  • Jahrgang 1950 53 Jahre Frauen Männer Rente 2014
  • Jahrgang 1951 52 Jahre Frauen Männer Rente 2015
  • *Diese Menschen sind nicht arbeitsuchend gemeldet auf Druck der Bundesagentur fuer Arbeit, weil sie so aus der offiziellen Statistik des BfA rausfallen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.237.32.178 (talk) 13:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Dole edit

I have changed the explanation for the British term "dole" as the previous one didn't make sense. Maikel (talk) 19:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Taxation in United States edit

The text was not clear on whether unemployment compensation payments are currently taxed by the Internal Revenue Service. Currently they are. I have clarified the text accordingly and added sources. I am removing the {{dubious}} tag now. Quacks Like a Duck (talk) 14:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

Yes Boss kcee (talk) 15:13, 9 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Where there is no unemployment benefits? edit

We should have something here on how many countries have no form of unemployment benefits whatsoever. Can you imagine what would happen to you without a job, family support, or prospect of work? Well, that's what's happening in most countries. The article should probably say something about this, to internationalise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.11.71.121 (talk) 05:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC) try living like a normal person and you will understand it is called life — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.114.111 (talk) 09:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

"Benefits"? edit

Why isn't this page called "Unemployment Payments" or something instead? The term "benefits" is an insurance term, and focuses on the insurance industry when the insurance industry is only involved in some, but not all, unemployment payment schemes. The master article should thus be "Unemployment Pay", and "Unemployment Benefits" should redirect to it. The involvement of insurance companies in this system which is normally and/or mostly dealt with by taxes should be a subsection of the master Unemployment Payments article. To put it another way, the involvement of the insurance industry is not required for unemployment payments, and thus terms like "benefits" shouldn't be used to describe it. Yfrwlf (talk) 16:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

Why does work sharing redirect here? edit

Work sharing and unemployment benefits is not the same. --Mats33 (talk) 01:33, 27 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

potential Unemployment insurance#United States resource edit

Unemployment Insurance Under the Knife by Kate Kahan and George Wentworth December 14, 2011. This article appeared in the January 2, 2012 edition of The Nation. 99.181.153.29 (talk) 03:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

Work sharing edit

The search for "work sharing" redirects to this page. However, this page doesn't have any information at all about work sharing programs, as described, for example, here

This needs to be remedied, either by adding a section or by adding information about countries that use this plan (e.g., Canada, Germany) or by creating a new article and eliminating the redirect. Bill Jefferys (talk) 23:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Eligibility in US needs correction edit

Currently it says "Americans", which assumes "citizens" while in fact permanent residents can also apply for unemployment compensation. http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/unemployment-insurance/ - operates on term "worker" rather than citizen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.226.7.92 (talk) 04:52, 30 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

Another issue with this section is that it contains some out-of-date information and a link that no longer works. The link that does not direct to any page is http://utahstaffingcompanies.com/helpful-tips-for-employers/unemployment-benefits-eligibility/. There is also some plagiarism in this section, especially where the author is attempting to describe what the base period is. Hopefully this section can be edited to reflect Wikipedia's policy on plagiarism.Rgillum121 (talk) 03:28, 5 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Intro Section edit

The first sentence was nonsense and looked like vandalism so I deleted it. Let me know if there was something that part was trying to say and we can edit it. Here is what it said, for the record: "Claiming unemployed benefits classes you as a doley, in England there are numerous amounts of dole heads, one commonly known as (...)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mariabl276 (talkcontribs) 20:05, 25 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Good idea to remove that, but since that text looked like cyberbullying, I removed the name from your quote. Bever (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Average amount paid in the US edit

From the entry (the US section): "The average weekly payment is $293.[42]"

This comes from a reference that is four years out-of-date. I think this whole sentence should be removed and will do so if no one objects Risssa (talk) 23:41, 12 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Updating edit

The information under "(US)Federal-state joint programs" stops at the end of 2010. Could someone with the required background please update this section? Thank you. Risssa (talk) 00:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Health Benefits edit

Regarding addition of section and copyright infringements {{OTRS pending}}

I have removed the content, as OTRS has been pending for over a year. — Diannaa (talk) 22:51, 30 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Dr. Valletta's comment on this article edit

Dr. Valletta has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


I focused on the material regarding the U.S. UI system. On the whole, I found the material to be quite disjointed and (based on Wikipedia standards, not a polished research paper or policy piece). Unfortunately, I do not have the time to provide extensive rewrites. However, I will flag some issues that leaped out at me:

(1) The following casual claim in the "Eligibility and amount" section is problematic: "Generally, the worker must be unemployed through no fault of his/her own although workers often file for benefits they are not entitled to." The claim about workers "often" filing for benefits to which they are not entitled is vague and unsubstantiated, and it comes across as editorializing.

(2) This passage is a problem: Federal rules are drawn by the United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. For most states, the maximum period for receiving benefits is 26 weeks. There is an extended benefit program (authorized through the Social Security Acts) that may be triggered by the state unemployment rate. Congress has often passed temporary programs to extend benefits during recessions. This was done with the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation (TEUC) program in 2002-2003, which has since expired,[37] and remained in force through June 2, 2010, with the Extended Unemployment Compensation 2008 legislation.[38] In July 2010, legislation that provides an extension of federal extended unemployment benefits through November 2010 was signed by the president. The legislation extended benefits for 2.3 million unemployed workers who had exhausted their unemployment benefits.

The description of the normal and extended benefit programs is quite muddled and out of date. See the discussion in Section 2.1 of this piece: http://izajolp.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9004-3-18.

(3) The section on "Unemployment insurance effect on unemployment" has extensive problems. Robert Barro's "study" is not a study, it's a Wall Street Journal op-ed, and putting it on an equal footing with actual research such as the cited piece by Jesse Rothstein is grossly misleading. I recommend that material from the following pieces be incorporated and compared in a balanced manner--the third and fourth items span the range of views. Also, some of the voluminous earlier literature on UI disincentive effects cited in these items and also my piece linked above should be incorporated as well: (i) http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.p20151088 (ii) Farber, Henry S., and Robert G. Valletta. Do Extended Unemployment Benefits Lengthen Unemployment Spells? Evidence from Recent Cycles in the U.S. Labor Market." Journal of Human Resources 50(4), Fall 2015, 873-909. (iii) http://www.nber.org/papers/w19499 (iv) http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/coglianese/files/coglianese_2015_ui_extensions.pdf?m=1448937481

I hope this helps somewhat.


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Valletta has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


  • Reference 1: Valletta, Robert G., 2014. "Recent extensions of U.S. unemployment benefits: search responses in alternative labor market states," Working Paper Series 2014-13, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
  • Reference 2: Henry S. Farber & Robert G. Valletta, 2013. "Do Extended Unemployment Bene ts Lengthen Unemployment Spells? Evidence from Recent Cycles in the U.S. Labor Market," Working Papers 1450, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:41, 15 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

US Federal-state joint programs edit

This section, specifically the beginning that elaborates on the way unemployment insurance taxes are paid, contains almost word-for-word plagiarism. It may be difficult to change the wording around too much because the source lays out the requirements for paying taxes for unemployment funds in such a simple, easy to understand way. However, the way the section is written must be reworded to fit with Wikipedia guidelines. Rgillum121 (talk) 03:14, 5 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

“On the dole” is very old... edit

Nobody says “on the dole” here in the U.S. who isn’t over 80 years old. If it’s used at all in the English-speaking world, it’s regional and colloquial. Why is that in the beginning of this article? If it’s mentioned at all, it should be a subtopic. SheldonHelms (talk) 14:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

It’s chiefly British: ding OED. I can’t find no source though corroborating that it’s old. ‑‑ K (🗪 | ) 08:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 7 July 2020 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved, WP:SNOW. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 10:34, 10 July 2020 (UTC)Reply



Unemployment benefitsUnemployment payments – This article already acknowledges unemployment payments as a synonym for the current title, so I don't see why this should be significant. The current title, unemployment benefits, suggests there is a definitive benefit or something to gain from unemployment, which I fear indirectly contributes to hostility or prejudice against people who need to access unemployment payments. On a more policy-focused note, unemployment benefits is overly broad considering this article is exclusively about payments - these "benefits" (supports) could also be support while job hunting, like government subsidised access to employment agencies, or tax concessions... It's important to be precise, especially considering the overlapping and mess in the broader category of welfare on Wikipedia. ItsPugle (talk) 12:08, 7 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.