Donald Trump’s administration is threatening to withdraw federal funding for unemployment assistance in all 50 states as part of the president’s nationwide campaign against “fraud” in government spending.
In a letter to the governors of 53 states and territories, acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling warned that the federal government would use “every available tool” to combat “waste, fraud and abuse” within state-run unemployment insurance programs, including “withholding administrative funds from states” for the first time in history.
There is no single national program for unemployment support, though the federal government partners with state agencies to support temporary financial assistance to out-of-work Americans. Nearly 2 million people are currently receiving those benefits, while roughly 229,000 people are filing initial jobless claims every week, according to the Labor Department.
president’s nationwide campaign against “fraud” in government spending.
Projection much, huh?
Also privilege, Republicans see themselves as privileged, it’s not fraud when they do it, they are allowed, it’s fraud when others without sufficient privilege do it.
It’s rationale: how would anyone need unemployment benefit with the best economy the
USA, theworld, sorry: the Universe have seen sincethe US existthe creation of Earth by God??
He’s gotta do something to pay Iran 300b.
If I were real honest, I’d say that I’m not sure this guy is good with money.
pls no, this would make the crime rate skyrocket
That’s what the federal cabal wants.
What the fuck are they trying to do? Why would they wanna destabilize the country?
Peter Thiel and a bunch of the other billionaires want to carve the US up into city states, they’re not particularly secretive about it either. The point is to destroy the country
It’s a quiet revolution most aren’t even aware is going on
I look forward to the day people stop thinking it will end in 2028
Is there any literature on this?
Project 2025.
Because in its an excuse to send in soldiers, try to justify martial law, suspend elections, and otherwise drag the country deeper into authoritarianism. It’s not quite a dictatorship yet, after all.
Same reason they rape children. They’re raping the nation for short-term profits, and imagine themselves as warlords over the ruins of a fallen world.
That’s the idea. Make it so the poor have no choice but commit crimes and then lock them up for it
And then, per the 13th, legal slavery!
Vote for him, places you in financial stress, he pisses the money away, takes more of your money for undefined reasons.
Jokes on them, it’s basically impossible to get unemployment here to start with.
Where is here?
America.
An actual traitor president and it looks like we’re just gonna ride it out with our fingers crossed.
And still the population will sit behind their screens with their keyboards and sgare a few memes and generally be pissed off and oh look its the next scandal and they population will sit behind their screens and generally be pissed off and oh look its the next scandal of the week…
Alexa what is a “distraction?”
Does that equal an amount intended for ballrooms or Iran?
Hahaha, do it. I’ll get the pop corn.
Bro this is the most boring shit ever, trump does something crazy half the judges say it’s fine half say it’s not and we go back and forth until the next stupid scandal takes over the headlines
Seems to buzz people everytime.
Yeah people are entertained by stupid shit i guess
The waste fraud and abuse are coming from inside the house.
And the senate, and the White House, and mar a lago
I’m not sure you’re getting the reference.
They could have been thinking of the House part of Congress, since they only listed the Senate.
I’m fairly certain that’s what they were thinking.
The house is part of congress, the other half being the senate, there was ambiguity and I ran with it
Wow, you may be the only one who gets very popular cultural references.
Yes… the white house… exactly… that’s the “joke”
The house is part of congress, the other half being the senate, there was ambiguity and I ran with it
“The American people will no longer tolerate the blatant waste, fraud and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars — no state should allow it either,”
Excuse me? If anything, the 2024 election made it crystal clear that the American people will, in fact, tolerate the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse of our hard-earned tax dollars. 77 million people actually voted for it.
they even published a fucking playbook called project 2025.
dumbfucks
But they super promised they never even heard of it or was going to use it. Then installed its writers in key positions. Purely by happenstance.
One of the things I hated so much about the 2024 election was all the fucking gaslighting about it, too. There were plenty saying “isn’t that just a liberal conspiracy theory” and bullshit about “blue maga” (lol, whatever) and lots of the corporate media doing that sort of collective shrug about a documented plan.
Lemmy loves the blue maga psyop.
yuuup. so fucking gross - hey we’re getting the fascist back in the white house, let’s make a list of horrors he can execute!
and the idiots ignored it. the media shrugged. Everyone I know was screaming about it but that tells you a lot about my peers - otherwise, the country just kinda shrugged and said “Yeah but harris slept her way to the top so-”
like, dude, if KH had such a magic vagina that the concept was even conceivable, even then, fuck you, she’s way more competent and they are WAY FEWER FASCIST PLAYBOOKS WAITING FOR HER you goddamned dolts
Amen to all that. Also, I forgot about all the “Heels Up Harris” nonsense…a certain type of individual will do almost anything not to vote for a woman, though.
yup. or POC. it’s amazing the gymnastics they’ll go through to justify voting for their grifting cult leader
oops did a bunch of fascism. whoopsie.
the question is in november, how much pain can they put on all the fucks that made this happen? I want to see dems showing up with receipts, blowtorches and pliers
My biggest fear is that even if we somehow manage to defeat all the cheating Dems STILL won’t take it far enough when it comes to punishing these assholes. They need to be treated like Confederates but actually held to account.
They need to be treated like Confederates but actually held to account.
for real, there must be consequences.
But you see, we have to heal and reach across the aisle or something
hopefully they’ll realize there is no healing until the cancer is cut out.
Yeah and what about that $300B in taxpayer dollars we’re giving to Iran? Seems like the definition of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Trump and the Republicans want to kill poor people.
& they are succeeding, worldwide
And you know what happens? This makes the next group of people, i.e. middle class, the next poors! Guess what they want to do to the new poors?
They don’t want to kill the poor, but they don’t care if they die. What they want are tons of poor, desperate voters and workers.
The Republicans have never cared if the poor die. That’s a basic part of their ideology.
This is different though. Starting with DOGE and continuing unabated since, Trump and his Republican lackeys (and his fascist handlers) have clearly deliberately gone out of their way to arrange things not so that poor people might die but so that they will die.
What they want are tons of poor, desperate voters and workers.
Which is exactly what will be left over after they kill off as many “undesirables” as possible.
What they want is riots so they can declare martial law and hold power indefinitely, Because people are still upset about martial law being declared so “antifa” must be out there still
Trump and the Republicans want to kill poor people.
Don’t forget, he’s also very stupid, and I honestly believe the narcisist thinks things are going really great right now, he just can’t find a way to get the numbers to agree with him. Sadly, on a purely metric issue this might be a winning play. Unemployment numbers are counted based on how many people are collecting unemployment. Kick people off unemployment = they don’t count as unemployed. In his narcisism he might actually believe that “fake unemployed people are making the job numbers worse”. Secondly jobs numbers themselves. Take away unemployment, people will work shittier jobs that might delay homelessness, or possibly get food when they are homeless.
Unemployment numbers are counted based on how many people are collecting unemployment.
Unemployment insurance claims aren’t used to measure the unemployment rate in the US. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump thinks they are… Nor would I be surprised if he tries (or is trying) to change the measure so that it is based on unemployment claims.
To be clear I’m not saying the US’s unemployment numbers are good—they are distorted to make the unemployment number look smaller than it is. One issue is that People must be actively looking for work to be considered “unemployed”, otherwise they aren’t part of the “labor force” and don’t count at all. It doesn’t matter if they are capable of work, want to work, and spent a year straight looking for work; if they aren’t actively looking now, they don’t count. Additionally, if a person is doing any work at all—even a few hours a week at minimum wage, or doing a bit of unpaid work for a family business—they are considered an employed member of the labor force. It doesn’t matter if they are broke, homeless, and desperately looking for a job; they count as an employed member of the labor force.
Interesting, but yeah I guess that still counts in the sense that still it’s pushing say, software engineers that lost their jobs to AI, to absolutely have to take a minimum wage job to, possibly afford enough food to survive while getting evicted/foreclosed etc…
No matter how you slice it, it still does put more people… into a rush to get SOME form of employment. even at the cost of their time that they could be using to get… actually livable employment.
blue collar worker looks up
“Homie, you think we have jobs for y’all?”
There’s a republican solution for that as well… “lower/eliminate minimum wage so corporations can hire people to do things that are less useful”. Think of it, we can pay people $2 an hour to have them stand in a park and tell people they should eat at mcdonalds, normally the conversion rate is too low, but at $2 an hour, if they can get one person to go every 2 hours, it’s still profitable.
(and yes obviously this is horribly terrifyingly stupid… and honestly not that far from what many horrible politicians have pushed for).
Kick people off unemployment = they don’t count as unemployed.
Hmm…
Yes - this is true. And it’s essentially 100% guaranted that unemployment, measured honestly, is going nowhere but up.
And with the midterms coming up…
Yes - this seems more likely to be the primary motivation.
It’s the financial version of “if we stop counting COVID deaths, the numbers will go down”
In his narcissism he might actually believe that “fake unemployed people are making the job numbers worse”.
This would be on par for the guy who wanted to “Stop the Count” and figured you don’t have a pandemic if you don’t test.
Who do they think the rich will live off of then?
Or maybe they haven’t thought that far ahead.
Oh, they’re not planning on killing all of the poor people. Just the unemployed ones.
And with employment protections gone, their conception of undesirables - non-cis and/or non-white - will be over-represented among the unemployed.
And not even all of them will die, but the survivors will have no safety net so will end up homeless, and with homelessness criminalized, they’ll be sentenced to private prisons/workhouses and be corporate slave labor.
Basically, they want to cull the herd - just eliminate the people who won’t serve an immediate purpose in their planned technofeudalism.
“Make poor people their slaves” Yes
They also think that they will save money by letting people get poorer. Moving everyone a step down won’t have that effect.
Waste and fraud… If only someone hadn’t started a war with Iran and then paid them $300B three months later to end it, gaining precisely nothing…
And spent 14 million painting a pool blue?
And renaming the color green to blue
How do empires die?
Gradually then suddenly.
The US is in the latter stage.
Burnt through their head start after ww2 and squandered it all.
Living through the fall of the US is the fucking worst but also fascinating. It isn’t too often that folks get to see this kinda thing. I hate this so much, but I am very curious to see how shit plays out. I’m doing what I can to improve conditions, but I can only do so much
Punctuated equilibrium.
We effectively had our Hannibal moment getting locked into a stalemate with Iran.
This stunt actually has nothing to do with “fraud” in government spending, but as someone with experience in government procurement, contracting is where the waste is. The government actually doesn’t do too badly when we keep the work in-house. It’s these multimillion dollar contracts to some private company that are where the waste, fraud, and abuse are. Go fucking audit SpaceX. Revisit those contracts. Bet we can save billions every year on just one companies stupid fucking defense contracts. Then go after the rest of these contractors. Threaten to bring the work back in house and see how they react. Follow through and actually bring the work back in house, build the public sector engineering and manufacturing expertise, and see where we are.
Contracting as in having the reflection pool painted?
Be careful. Facts, logic, and common sense will only get you on a gov’t watchlist these days.
Like Trump’s no bid contracts that he’s been giving out?
We’re in fascism these scam companies and the government are one in the same.
I know it’s easy to hate on everything Elon, but Falcon launches are about an order of magnitude cheaper than any other launch, primarily by virtue of the fact that launch vehicles aren’t single-use. Starship hasn’t done that well yet, but the estimates I’ve been able to work out put the total budget so far for that project to be as much or less than the cost of launching a single SLS launch, and it only has a lifespan of 5 launches before it gets dramatically more expensive. Falcon was cheaper to get into full operational mode than Starship, sure, but if you thought it would be easier to make one of the biggest rockets ever, then you would be mistaken.
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