March 14, 2010
Published: 5 Dec 09 11:01 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/23670/20091205/
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A stay-at-home parent’s activities are not classified as ‘work’, according to the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court (Regeringsrätten).
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Then again, I'm against any gov't welfare programs. I can understand helping those who can not physically work. But not being able to find a job, is not justification for stealing money I earn.
I'm all for charity, and donated a decent amount to charities of my choosing when in the US. But I refuse to accept that taking money against one's will does any 'greater good.'
There is no difference between the thief who breaks into your home while you're gone, and theif who passes a law saying you have to give the x% of the money you EARN.
The second story here doesn't seem like a botch job. It does seem like bastardly bureaucrats though. She did a job. She was on call 24/7, she was payed a monthly (set) salary - but she didn't work a set amount of hours? I'm guessing - even though it's not mentioned in the story - that the woman was deemed to have worked less than the stipulated minimum amount of hours required to be eligible for unemployment benefits. It would be nice if stories on the local actually contained these details though.
Anticommie and Zoolander428:
I'm all for temporary unemployment benefits. I think that most people here can accept those. By far the majority of people (even in Sweden) hate being unemployed and not being able to supporting themselves. Yea, really. What I have a problem with is people who refuse to ever work or who outright defraud the system. Don't you have unemployment benefits in the good ol' USA? In fact, I'm pretty sure I've even read about how those benefits are being extended now.
However, I agree that this story seems to be lacking details.
So a woman has to give up work to care for a special needs child and gets no benefit. She must have paid her unemployment insurance at some stage else she could not go to A-kassan anyway.
This is a catch 22 situation. If she goes to work and leaves her special needs child at home, Social Services would most probably prosecute her for child neglect.
As for anticommie, he is a redneck american who is not in Sweden so just ignore him.
If it is work, and you're still managing your family, you're still working so you aren't entitled to unemployment benefits.
If it is not work, you aren't entitled to unemployment benefits as you were never employed.
Either way, you aren't to unemployment benefits. What's the story here?
A-Kassa is a form of insurance which you pay for out of your pocket just like health insurance, auto insurance or life insurance. I've been paying this insurance for 3 years and now that I'm out of work I receive money to live on until I find another job. It is not welfare. It is not free. It is a service which I have chosen to purchase with my own, earned money. Had I not had this insurance I would have had to turn to the local government for help. After thoroughly checking out my personal finances they would have come to my apartment and pointed out all the nice things I could sell on E-bay for cash and then after I was sitting there on my chair in the middle of a mostly empty room, then, they'd start helping with rent and other expenses. Rush Limbaugh has never lived in Sweden. FYI.
Your remark about people from the United States doesn't really impress me either.
Plus, you should read Hairdont's post. it's an insurance, so if the brown woman you hire have paid into the a-kassa insurance then she will get it if she ever becomes unemployed.
Let's look at the 2 women separately.
First you have the woman who is manages a family(what we call a home-maker in the US). The story claims that she had not worked, and by work I assume they mean to perform a service for a fee. Let's face it, its a lot of physical and mental labor to raise a family, but you don't receive a monetary payment. So no taxable income or income to pay toward unemployment insurance. Now the question is, did she at any time pay into an a-kassa program? At that time was she employed and receiving income? These are things we don't know from the story, so we can't really discuss. If she did at one time pay into a-kassa, then she should receive benefits, if she did so while not employed, then that is like buying car insurance and not having a car.
Now the second woman had a job for which she received a set income. I fail to understand how someone can work the entire day(not sure if that means 24/7 or just the 8 hours a day in this case) Now, if I understand it correctly, she worked at an emergency shelter, so something that is not in use all the time, however she was still technically employed. As such she is now un-employed and should be able to claim her benefits. Again, I read that she had been paying into the plan since 1997. If so she has about 12 years of money she should be able to recoup. If the plan says her job status did not apply then she should not have had the plan. I understand this to be separate from government assistance, so voluntary and therefore something she could have opted out of had she known that her job did not meet a-kassa's definition of employment.
So for the second woman, is it merely a case of an insurance company taking her money and then when she makes a claim telling her that her job didn't meet the requirements of being employed so she didn't really lose a income amount large enough for them to pay out.? So did she know her job didn't meet the requirements and she opted in anyway, did it just slip her mind and she didn't read the fine print, or did the insurance company mislead her? Again, we don't have the facts to make a judgment call.
I'm not working at the moment, learning Swedish and planning on furthuring my education. I don't receive any benefits as I have never worked in Sweden and that's just fair. BUT- there are a LOT of people at my sfi course (about 90%) who I know DO receive befnefits and it's not just your basic unemployment benefit, it's EVERYTHING. They have their housing and bills paid for by the government, they get money every month to dress and feed themselves and their children, and as I can see, they are breeding (a LOT of the women at the course are pregnent) which means the government will soon be dishing out more money.... so in all fairness, I believe the headline should be 'learning Swedish and breeding like rabbits is not work'.
n.b the above mentioned, I know some who have been here for up to 4 years and NEVER worked and the govt is paying their way. I would much prefer my future taxes to be going elsewhere....