Missouri State Lawmaker: Unemployed Should 'Get Off Their Backsides,' Get Jobs

Missouri state Senator Jim Lembke, a Republican who recently made headlines for taking issue with red light cameras, railed against unemployment benefits earlier this week during a debate about whether the state should accept additional federal funds in to extend the program.

"Ninety-nine weeks is too long," Lembke said, referring to the 99-week window during which the unemployed can receive jobless benefits. "People need to get off their backsides and get a job. Maybe they'll have to get two jobs or three jobs to make ends meet, but they need to quit stealing from their neighbors."

Lembke's comments appear to be part of a larger trend that has taken place across the country during heated debate about providing additional aid to the unemployed.

Many legislators who have opposed the extension or reauthorization of benefits over the past months have expressed their belief that unemployment insurance either discourages recipients from seeking jobs, or simply rewards the "lazy."

HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reported last year in the heat of the congressional standoff over unemployment benefits:

Beneath the deficit concerns, however, there's something else: the suspicion that the long-term unemployed are a bunch of lazy drug addicts.

It's not an opinion openly shared by most members of Congress, but a handful of senators and representatives from both parties have said this year that they suspect extended unemployment benefits actually discourage people from looking for work.

While the one-year extension of funds for unemployment benefits ended up being a large selling point for President Obama's tax cuts compromise in December, the House GOP recently blocked a proposal to include additional benefits to the long-term unemployed in legislation that would have funded the government through September.

Comments

[banditsrubyangel]

11:29 PM on 04/06/2011

The ironic part about Lembke is that if he were unemployed right now, he would have to consider himself one of the "lazy unemployed who are stealing from their neighbors." Have you seen what he looks like? He'll obviously never see 50 again in this life time. Employers now are going for the young ones, so they can pay them cheap wages and little or no benefits. Lembke wouldn't be able to get one part-time job, much less two or three. Usually I don't wish unemployment hell on anyone, but in his case I'll make an exception.

[ocrmom59]

03:39 AM on 04/05/2011

When more and more republicans/teaparties start harping on things like this in a mean way is because they are afraid. They have no solutions and no ideas and the only one who is trying hard todo something is the president.

All the republicans have done is holler NO to everything the president tried to do to get the economy going again or they pass bills in the house knowning they are going to be defeated in the senate, all this to make it look as if they are doing something when they are n ot.

It is the president who have been on the big businesses back and told them to stop making profits off the american people and start hiring or suffer the reactions from the american people. He have passed several bills that help small business an they are hiring and this too the big business don't like because they cannot get a piece of the pie until they start hiring.

But we have to understand that it still takes time to get as many people back to work to bring the rate the down, but some of the jobs are gone and people will have to get trainning to compete in the job market today. This is nothing new, it happens every time and it scares people to know they have to make some chnges in the job market. Every thing do not stay the same, it changes and we have too change too.

[Deb Jesser]

02:52 AM on 04/05/2011

I am absolutely appalled that someone who has the exact same name as my deceased, still very beloved brother, would abase his name this way. If a Jim Lembke was needed in heaven, why wasn't this guy taken instead?

[European1919]

03:15 AM on 04/05/2011

What's in a name?

[kwh columbia]

11:08 AM on 04/01/2011

The Republicans in Jefferson City call the unemployed: "unemployed are a bunch of lazy drug addicts." I live in Missouri and know people who are unemployed. These unemployed people are not lazy or drug addicts. They are people who have worked hard all their lives, some own homes, some have children and they pay their taxes. They are not rich and the $320 a week or less that they get from unemployment is not enough to put a roof over their children's heads and food on the table for their family to eat. I am tired of the Republicans giving tax breaks to the rich people and to corporations who make millions/or billions of dollars a year and are laying off works to keep their companies stock price high. I am tired of Republicans giving tax breaks to companies that ship american jobs over seas. I am tired of buying junk from China that is made to break as soon as the warranty is over. It is time to stop the imports and demand that you can only buy something in the USA if it is made in the USA by works in the USA and only by companies that pay taxes in the USA. If it was law that everything you buy in this country had to be made here and only by USA companies that pay taxes here.... Think about how many jobs would be created?

[cosmiCataclysm]

03:09 PM on 04/05/2011

Missouri is a frustrating place to live. It seems like a lot of people here have been convinced to vote against their best interests by voting to impose so-called Christian conservative values on the rest of us, who just want to live life.

[bluecollaramerican]

10:40 AM on 03/29/2011

They were off their backsides until their employers put them out the door. So what are you talking about?

[MichaelGMan]

06:01 PM on 03/17/2011

Missouri huh? The "Show-Me" state! Hey Missouri, show me the jobs!!

[MichaelGMan]

05:59 PM on 03/17/2011

This is what happens when the ruling class, enabled by the moneyed class, comes to power.
He says working two or three jobs is the required solution. It all sounds like an overlord's perfect method of exploitation. The pay is so low that you need to work jobs so you can pay the rent and get foodstamps. GOP = Grafting Our Prosperity. GOP = no taxation and all of the representation. Working class = all of the taxation and none of the representation.

[Arts4u]

01:08 AM on 03/17/2011

"Maybe they'll have to get two jobs or three jobs to make ends meet, but they need to quit stealing from their neighbors."

Yes, that IS Missouri speaking.....

Maybe that is what happens in his glorious State........

[demilieu]

02:43 PM on 03/16/2011

Stealing?

[beau taylor]

07:35 PM on 03/10/2011

YOU GOT JOBS? WE WANT JOBS!! YOU GOT JOBS? WE WANT JOBS? HOW 'BOUT YOU GETTIN' OFF YOUR A$$ AND SHOW US WHERE THEY ARE.....!!

[Heleni Smith]

10:59 AM on 03/10/2011

Those politicians don't have a clue about structural unemployment. The one that is NOT your fault.

[krr02]

10:37 AM on 03/10/2011

ahhh...just what we need....

another official who has a hotline to god...

he got it at Meramec Community College and Covenant Theological Seminary...

there he learned how identify and fight true world evils...

redlight cameras and the jobless...

how god hates both

[Ojodelgato]

08:55 AM on 03/15/2011

And heaven has a cover charge to keep out the undesireables.

[April22]

04:05 PM on 03/09/2011

I have been on unemployment since March of 2008, with only one part-time, seasonal job, since that time.

I have applied for so many jobs and sent out so many resumes and cover letters.

Job applications for grocery or department stores are done online and sent to corporate headquarters, usually outside of the state for which you are applying. Some applications have 2 or 3 pages of questions to be answered and for which you will be graded or rated. You are a person unseen and without a voice.

Some applications have asked for age, credit rating, and race and ethnicity.

Finding a job is not always the hardest part as getting hired.

Would I chose to stay and home and collect less money than when I was working, or sit and worry as to how long I will remain unemployed, or what happens when my unemployment runs out?

These past two years have been so burdensome, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I feel I have aged ten years, especially when I look at myself in the mirror.

I can only do what I am doing. Keep looking for a job, any job (I'll have to work two just to survive and keep my house), and try not to think of what the possibilities will be if this goes on too much longer.

Very hard to keep hopeful and upbeat when your future is in peril, and not because you lacked for trying.

[Heleni Smith]

11:01 AM on 03/10/2011

Best wishes to you. :)
I know how many people are trying hard and yet they can't find a job. Don't these politicians understand what a 9% unemployment means? It means there are more workers than jobs.

[sandracoston]

02:55 PM on 03/19/2011

There solution to the job crisis in this country is to lay more people off..I for on think that this is deliberate and calculated in order to win the presidency in 2012... I hope that the American people do not reward these thugs for doing absolutely nothing, and using the people as pawns in their political games...

[fortressfountain]

06:45 PM on 03/08/2011

People need to get off their backsides? They are on linkin and facebook-how else would you get a job?
Some make the better business decision to collect benefits-they have expenses and familes to support. The same way a homeowner will choose to squat until they are kicked out of their home.
I suppose if everyone had a good work ethic wall street would not have lost money in the mortgage fiasco.

[lodkia]

08:51 AM on 03/08/2011

In fact this Missouri State Lawmaker spewing his "get off their backsides" is also spewing and I quote a Huffington Post moderator once again "mind vomit"! In fact, that phrase just might take off in the 2012 election! Hehe! Just remember folks that phrase came from this web site; I'm just passing it on! Oh and by the way, try reading a Democratic and Republican platform; your stomach could get quesy!