Working Strategies: Unemployment checks can hamper motivation

Many Americans will soon run out of unemployment benefits. Perhaps the federal or state governments will make yet another extension, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

I think that’s for the best. I should be hunching my shoulders to protect against an angry response when I write such things, but there it is: I’m not a fan of extensions to unemployment.

In my experience, projects take the amount of time we allot them. When someone no less influential than the government implies a proscribed length to that project by providing a standard 26 weeks of benefits, that timeline becomes the de facto standard for job search itself. I can’t begin to count the times over the years when I’ve heard newly laid-off workers proclaim, “I’ve got six months to find a job before my unemployment runs out.”

I should believe they’re thinking differently when the unemployment is set to last eight months or a year? No. If we’re able to scrape by, we’re likely to be less motivated than if we can’t make ends meet.

I don’t think most people are intentionally gaming the system. But I also don’t think we’re going to have a state of emergency on our hands when those benefits start to peter out. People will do what they’ve always done, which is to make things work somehow.

Ask yourself what all the discouraged workers are doing. Those are the unemployed people who no longer receive benefits and so are not counted into the official statistics. Some are using food shelves and social services, but more have simply hunkered down with a series of part-time and cash jobs, waiting for things to turn around.

When your benefits run out, the problem won’t just be unemployment; it will be cash flow. Focus your attention on earning more or spending less to keep the budget balanced.

What if the budget is already in the tank? Then it’s time for something more drastic, such as relocating or selling assets. I have friends who moved to an efficiency apartment and rented out their house for a gain of several hundred dollars a month. Someone else I met sold everything to live and work on a boat.

I’m not telling you to do those things. I’m telling you to do something. Waiting for an extension to unemployment is not an action plan.

Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@protoypecareerservice.com or at 626 Armstrong Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102.