IRS reveals millionaires claiming unemployment benefits See full article from WalletPop: http://srp

[madmom]

For most taxpayers, 2008 wasn't a year to remember. As a whole, incomes and profits tumbled while foreclosures and job losses soared. We saw the anecdotal evidence in the headlines and photos splashed across the media. (Meanwhile, unscrupulous Wall Street types took greed and avarice to a whole new level.)

Hard data from the IRS backs up what we knew to be the case: The recession hit the country hard. But the numbers also tell a shocking, much lesser-known story: Quite a few millionaires were claiming unemployment benefits, too. So while millions of Americans with struggled to keep their homes and feed their kids, a few thousand millionaires, though in not nearly as bad shape, were on the dole, too.


Giving some super-rich folks the benefit of the doubt, if you will, it appears some of them didn't have such a spectacular 2008. Seventeen of those 13,480 taxpayers who reported income of more than $10 million found themselves standing in the unemployment lines alongside nearly 9.5 million other Americans in 2008. Unemployment benefits for those taxpayers averaged $5,765. The number claiming unemployment benefits increased to nearly 3,000 for those taxpayers who reported overall income of more than $1 million.

Of course, unemployment benefits were up across the board -- nearly 25% -- at all income levels. The super poor to the super rich reported a collective total of $43.7 billion in unemployment benefits.


See full article from WalletPop: http://srph.it/bjJkwa

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. No article...

...referring to 'the dole' should be taken seriously.

UI eligibility isn't means-tested, which is why it survives. The day a social provision is means-tested is the beginning of the countdown till its elimination.

[dsc]

2. and this should bother us, why?

they, or more accurately their employer, paid in just like other people. It is insurance, not welfare.

[Warpy]

3. If they're Wall Street millionaires and still paying for Manhattan condos

they might need that unemployment to make up the difference on the mortgage. Most of those condos are far less than palatial, 600 square feet of loft space at a "good" address and unsellable right now.

When you say "millionaire" you also have to specify where they are, what kind of debt load they're paying off, what sort of whack they take every month on living expenses, and so on and so forth.

A Manhattan millionaire getting his two hundred bucks a week is pretty understandable. A Mississippi millionaire getting the same is borderline unconscionable.

[Retrograde]

4. The IRS's opinion of income is not the same as ours, necessarily

That $10M figure can include any lump sum payments, bonuses, stock options, equity shares, accrued vacation, etc that the employer pays the laid-off employee at termination. When I got laid off I had to cash in several years' worth of stock options, which put an big spike in my yearly income (nowhere near $10M, sigh). These people may not - probably aren't - seeing this kind of money every year.

And it's one final FU to the boss, since the company (at least in my state) has to kick in for unemployment.