A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House and Senate on Thursday introduced legislation to prevent millionaires from taking unemployment checks.

Um, how isn’t this a thing already? (Millionaire=people who earn $1M yearly)
Sorry for Fox News, but it’s the best source with this headline and it says it’s bipartisan so we should probably be good.

  • shottymcb@lemm.eeEnglish
    22·
    11 months ago

    You don’t have to put the burden on the unemployment system or the poor. A simple law that says “claiming unemployment insurance if your net worth is over $5,000,000 shall be punished by 30 years in prison” would suffice.

    • JamesFire@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      And then how do you enforce that without calculating net worth? Just let people self-report with no verification?

      • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        11 months ago

        I don’t think it necessarily needs active enforcement. It can be as simple as:

        Richy Rich: “So I claimed unemployment during my taxes, and no one stopped me! Bwa ha ha!”
        Moralistic Auditor: “Wait…you did?? That’s illegal! Screw it, I always hated you, I’m going to report you to the IRS!”
        IRS: “We’ve discovered you incorrectly claimed unemployment, thanks to an anonymous tip and brief investigation. Your punitive taxes have been quintupled.”

        You wouldn’t always catch everyone; that’s fine, as long as the cost of abusers is not outweighed by the savings of not verifying everyone.

        • techwooded@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Main problem with this is that unemployment isn’t handled by the IRS, it’s a program under the Department of Labor and administered by the States and federal agencies notoriously don’t talk to each other.

          There’s also nothing wrong with just giving them unemployment benefits, but you structure your tax system so that the rich people, when they end up needing to claim unemployment, are paying more or equivalent in taxes paying into unemployment than they’re getting in the payout. You simplify both sets of laws, the IRS is in charge of collecting revenue and the subdepartment of Labor tasked with this only has to worry about dishing out your cash so the administration of the benefit is simplified, and you still get your desired result of exceedingly well off people not “dragging” the system