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The Job Of The Unemployed

By Amy E. Feldman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Why would you race back from vacation if you're unemployed?

Being unemployed has some benefits - you certainly have more time to take a vacation. But if you're looking for actual benefits, that's probably not a great plan.

A New Jersey woman was collecting unemployment from October to December. She'd had plans to go to Jamaica to be in her sister's destination wedding in December and figured that she didn't have to race back now that she had no job to force her to return so she stayed in Jamaica for a couple of extra weeks. Sounds like a good plan to me. Not to the unemployment comp board though, which took away her unemployment benefits.

The Board said that in order to be eligible to get unemployment, you have to show that you are available for work - and while she claimed she could still look for jobs on line, the Board said what we're thinking: yeah right. You're racing off to the beach to look for work?

So the lesson is while you're collecting unemployment, your job is to find a job - treat it as such if you want to keep getting a check.

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