A gubernatorial recall effort is being sought by The People of the State of California to oust Gavin Newsom from office. Among the chief complaints are his seemingly arbitrary and allegedly illegal deep-reaching orders for the shutdown of thousands of businesses that have no culpability in spreading the Corona Virus. The snowball effect of the shutdowns is that hundreds of thousands of workers being forced to stay home, small businesses taking the brunt of the damage, and the economy tanking. Some anti-Newsom groups cite his hidden agenda to create a government-dependent welfare status among a large swath of the state‘s population in keeping with a further plan towards more socialistic existence. For many of the people who are now being forced to accept them or starve, unemployment benefits in no way meet nor expand beyond normal salaries.
Meanwhile, California‘s Employment Development Department (EDD) is responsible for the administration and issuance of unemployment checks statewide, but is using an antiquated and failing computer system dating back at least 30 years, and there have been rampant problems with it based on unprecedented overload of new applicants. Fraudulent claims numbering over $2 billion have already been paid out to prison inmates, for example, while some of the legitimate recipients have received nothing
Beginning in March/April of 2020, a statewide unemployment fund especially for COVID19 benefit payments was opened, and would expire by January 1, 2021. The online filing process required applicants to give a reason as to why they could not work. Every 14 days, applicants had to decertify to continue to receive benefits, giving justification for the request by outlining what had happened during the previous two weeks workwise.
There are numerous questions that have to be answered on the website, this post focuses on just one of them, a drop-down box, “What is the reason you could not work?” [paraphrased]. The drop-down, created months or years before COVID19, has options such as illness, fired, laid off, workman’s compensation, quit, natural disaster, man-made disaster, etc., or not listed. The next box was free-form, and applicants who selected “not listed” could explain in their own words why they needed unemployment benefits. Write in “COVID19” or words to that effect. Throughout 2020, this online application was never updated to reflect anything about COVID19.
Fast-forward to January 2021. As of January 9, 2021, the online application had finally been updated to include choices specific to COVID19 as the reasons a person couldn’t work. In addition to choices shown previously, the above-mentioned mandatory drop-down now has these new selections:
“Laid off due to lack of work related to COVID”
”Fired related to COVID”
“Still working part time or on call related to COVID”
”Still working full time or on call related to COVID”
[ALL PARAPHRASED]
Icontend that the above choices are incomplete and therefore force many applicants‘ answers to be inaccurate. There was no choice for
“Laid off due to Government-ordered shutdown of business/livelihood”,
which is the true reason. There’s plenty of work to be done at people’s jobs, not a lack of work.
By not doing so, isn’t it akin to a coverup? To allow a truthful answer also admits the governor’s hand in this, and failure to allow it involves the state government also.
As such, shouldn’t Governor Gavin Newsom, EDD and the state government acknowledge that reality and make his own shutdown orders one of the choices?
What are you referring to that the people should have done? Not voted Newsom into office?
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Furthermore, “Laid off due to Government-ordered shutdown of business/livelihood” is the same as “Laid off due to lack of work related to COVID”. It's just not in those exact words. Common sense! They can't have a box to check for every exact possible scenario. No one can.
I’ll cover this one because it’s the most important of them.
Omitting a choice that specifically identifies the government-ordered shutdown lets Newsome off the hook, simple as that. Newsome doesn’t want the paper trail of hundreds of thousands of online applicants acknowledging that the reason they’re out of work is his order, so there’s no mention of the shutdown order in the drop-down box. Out of sight, out of mind. Not every job or industry is without customers, especially not small businesses that can’t easily fold up into online-only models. As such, COVID might be one pillar of a three-legged stool that stops jobs, Newsome is another.
He gets to hide behind COVID19 as the ONLY reason he ordered the latest round of shutdowns to be carried out, even in businesses that the owners, managers, etc. have already complied with the previously-ordered precautions AND where no evidence of spread of the virus could be found. Of course, Newsome’s own privately owned businesses remain open and his personal budgetary bottom line doesn’t suffer, unlike the peasants. So as long as an employee is in Newsome’s back pocket at one of his business ventures, an unemployment application isn’t necessary. I have not stated that every possible or potential situation needs to be anticipated on the form, I cited one situation in particular that is lacking.
You’ve stayed that you live in California as do I. Have you read or read Newsome’s sound bites and press conferences wherein he gives his response to the recall? His own words are the best measure of his plans about it.
In the interim, he plans to pay off the very people who are going to or who might have already signed recall petitions. It’s a blatant bribe.
I know you’re not defending Newsome, I did not imply otherwise.
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Shuhak 