Steve Breen for May 22, 2020

So called conservatives are always worried that the little guy might get more than an even break…. They seem to have no problems with rich people sicking on the taxpayer tit tho…. but should you or I get something extra, it’s OMG what a sin! So they try to make you jealous by contending that it’s unfair… Recently an oil company in bankruptcy was able to get a forgivable loan under the stimulus for a little over $9M… They split the money to 9 execs as bonuses and went bankrupt anyway…. sure haven’t seen any toons about that one…. How ’bout you Steve?… Does that bother you at all?

Staying home could mean staying alive for yourself and others, but then that would threaten the bottom line of the oligarchy, so rip up that character destroying unemployment check and get out there so you can die for your betters. /s

Notice the devil is red and is spouting Republican hate rhetoric.

I do notice that the red devil is spouting Republican nonsense. The extra unemployment help is specifically to help people stay home during this pandemic so they don’t threaten the health of countless other citizens. It’s an incentive to shelter in place during the crisis. If there were no incentive, people would risk their lives and the lives of countless others to go to some job that pays crap.

A brand spankin’ new (old, very old) Republican head worm.

Hold on there! Where the heck can one claim unemployment benefits that are more than what one could earn by working?

Further, if that is so, doesn’t that indicate that wages are too low? Are we talking Walmart here, which pays its workers so little that they need and can get lots of government (tax-payer funded) assistance? Shame on Walmart and others for making huge profits while sticking it to workers and taxpayers! (Including you, Jeff Bezos!)

Wealth inequality is rampant. Most people don’t have the personal reserves to get through a long stretch without income. Government is about working together to make everyone safer and more secure. Pay in though your taxes, and get hep when you need it. Measured by how income is distributed and how taxes are paid, our government is a failure. Measured by its response to the pandemic, our government is a failure.

It’s the little people like you that need to pay the taxes so we can bail out the big corporations that don’t. Be Best !

More Republican troll lies. How nice.

Of course, it’s a moot point if your employer ISN’T OPEN…

I’ve seen quite a bit of this. many of the businesses I deal with that were deemed essential have had employees bail on them to collect state unemployment plus the extra $600/week fed handout. The employer doesn’t have to lay them off, they can just tell their employer they don’t safe at work, check off the box that says that when they file and it’s a done deal. They’ll be back in July, most likely. But in the short term, it’s been problematic for some of these companies.

This puts me in mind of a definition of “puritan” I once heard; someone who thinks someone somewhere might be enjoying him or herself. Thus, a “conservative” is someone who thinks that someone somewhere might be getting something for nothing.

The premise is that you are receiving your unemployment benefits. And even if you are, the second premise is that it exceeds your normal paycheck. Since both premises are questionable, the conclusion is not only questionable, but ludicrous. With 40,000,000 Americans now unemployed due to the pandemic. and unemployment compensation nigh impossible to get within any reasonable timeline, the ludicrous conclusion becomes offensive as most are recently unemployed people just trying to keep food on the table and the lights and water on.

So very much wrong with all this. The idea that the unemployed don’t want to work, that they are willing to stay home as long as the check keeps coming in is just wrong.

I’ve gotta pay my bills. I’ve gotta feed my family. I’ve gotta pay the rent. Yes, I want to work. But the government allows employers to pay me below a living wage. And then they pass laws to keep me from organizing with other workers.

Don’t screw me over Breen, then blame me because I got screwed.

On what planet? Here in Florida, the maximum is $275 a week – if you ever get a check! People who were working, would prefer to work anyway! Breen needs to stop drinking the Kool-aid and face reality.

Just taking a page from the rich.. take all you can get, don’t let values get in the way.

Not giving people unemployment benefits because the unemployed won’t want to go back to work is a conservatives wet-dream and also a lie. An overriding majority of people want to work. Business owners and the 1% don’t want unemployment or universal health benefits because without them, the worker beholden to the business owner and the owners can cut wages.

Goodness, goodness, goodness; this old slightly recycled “welfare Queen” chestnut. Finland just published a study of the outcomes of their universal basic income, and surprise, surprise, it boosts productivity, and sustains employment.

Let’s apply this kind of thinking on the level of Federal funding of States. All those Red states that take more from the government than they pay in need to be cut off for their own good. We’re only disincentivizing them with all these subsidies, right?

It’s reassuring that well-heeled conservatives are concerned that the worker/slave caste could become slovenly if they aren’t underpaid in order to keep them motivated to do their menial jobs. It proves that people are wrong when they say the rich don’t think about the poor at all.

What utter BULL!! Anyone who can go back to work in my state has to go back to work or they don’t get any money. Once things “opened up” they no longer qualified for unemployment. But I bet Breen is totally fine with corporations getting large bailouts – the amount of which FAR exceed anything paid out in benefits to low paid workers.

I wish there was a down vote button on comics.

Right, Breen. Unemployment. That’s where the big bucks are. That’s why Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka (as well as Bezos, Zuckerberg, and other fat cats) are pensively waiting in line for their share of the windfall. Please return to reality on the next available flight.

I hope tomorrow you do a toon of the billionaires making $434 billion this last month while damn near 40 million people lost their jobs and are on unemployment. Take off the blinders Breen!

Of course, that unemployment money plus the added government money with it will continue forever…

That’s Lindsey Graham logic… He know as much about unemployment as Rump knows about his University.

Unemployment needs to keep up with minimum standards of cost of living, at least. Unemployment only lasts so long and stops Minimum wage in the states should be linked to COL as well, my state does and it really helps people, and is NOT a hardship on most businesses. Very small “family” businesses or those with very low sales often do have troubles meeting minimum, but again, matching to cost of living can also help on that.

Republicans have given trillions in tax breaks to billionaires, almost nothing to the working people. The country is shut down because the Feds refuse to pay for virus testing.