5 former NJ inmates charged with stealing $100K in unemployment benefits while in jail

5 former NJ inmates charged with stealing $100K in unemployment benefits while in jail (via NJ.com)

Five former state inmates have been charged with stealing approximately $100,000 in unemployment insurance benefits while they were in county jails and ineligible to receive them, the state Attorney General’s office said today. The inmates, along…

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Unemployment Insurance Abuse

You know that bartender or waitress at your favorite summer spot at the shore?  The one that is there year after year, knows your name when you show up every season and remembers your favorite drink?  That one.

The really good ones make enough money in tips over the summer to support their households for the rest of the year.  Six figures in cash tips over the summer.

Way too many of these people are also collecting unemployment, every year, year after year, from September through May.   It is a way of life.

Two shore mayors from Cape May County, with the support of the League of Municipalities are looking for a legislator to sponsor legislation in the next session that would disqualify seasonal workers from collecting unemployment insurance, according to a report at NJ.com

The mayors and the league want to save money on unemployment for seasonal municipal workers.  That’s not a bad idea. However the real savings, for the state’s unemployment fund, can be found in eliminating unemployment insurance for private sector seasonal employees.

Governor Christie doesn’t want the State to be subsidizing the horse racing industry. Rightfully so. However the State is also subsidizing the labor costs of every other seasonal industry.  The State is subsidizing a comfortable way of life for many seasonal workers who don’t need it.

Unemployment insurance premiums are a major drag on the economy. They are a major disincentive to hiring new workers, especially for small businesses who have had to lay people off during this economy. 

Eliminating unemployment insurance for all seasonal workers, not just municipal seasonal workers, will go a long way to returning the unemployment fund to solvency, reducing premiums for the businesses who hire year round workers, and boosting overall employment.

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Handlin Addressing Unemployment Insurance Abuse By Public Retirees

By Art Gallagher

Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-13) announced this morning that she is proposing legislation that would prohibit public employees who voluntarily retire and collect a pension from receiving unemployment benefits.

Handlin made the announcement on her facebook page.

MMM reported this abuse last Friday and encouraged our readers in the legislature, administration and media to do something about it.   Handlin is to be commended for taking up the challenge.

Send her a thank you by “liking” her page and leaving a comment.

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Unemployment Compensation Abuse, Taxpayer Abuse

By Art Gallagher

This is one of those stories I thought twice about writing because I don’t want to give “the bad guys” any smart ideas.  I’ve always thought journalists who reported a crime, particularly a financial crime, and then described in detail how the crime was committed were being irresponsible.  I decided to run with it in order to faciliate the end of the abuse.

Two Middletown former employees who retired in the spring of this year have applied for unemployment compensation and been granted the weekly checks by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, in addition to their pensions, over the objections of Middletown Township, according to Administrator Anthony Mercantante.  A third retiree who retired in late 2010 has been collecting unemployment compensation for most of this year.

Unlike private sector unemployment compensation whereby the employers pay a percentage of their payroll as an “insurance premium”  to the Department of Labor, Middletown in being billed by DOL for the entire amount that the “unemployed retirees” are collecting, according to Mercantante.  Thus Middletown taxpayers are paying these former employees not to work and paying their pensions.

This is an offensive new twist on double dipping. 

Mercantante said that the Department of Labor informed the township that the unemployment compensation was granted to the retirees because they claimed they would not have retired had the township not announced a layoff plan.

No one from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development was available to comment when I called this afternoon.  I will follow up with them on Monday. 

In the meantime, officials from other municipalities that have confronted the same situation are encouraged to use the comments section of this post to report the abuse.  Readers who are members of the Christie administration, legislators and members of the media, please take note.

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