I give the example for DC. Federal Unemployment Tax are 0.8 percent of your first $ 7,000.00 of your yearly salary. In addition you pay DC Unemployment Tax of 1.6 % of your first $ 9,000.00 of your yearly salary.
here and here some DC Info .
I don't know how regulations are in Germany, but in DC you must have worked for at least a year, must have lost your job without yourself being at fault. I don't know in detail the eligibility requirements and I think they differ from state to state and it's a bit too much to ask that I research it here.
In DC you can't apply for benefits unless you lose your job without being yourself at fault, it means that if you get fired or if you are forced to accept to resign "deliberately", you have no way to apply for unemployment benefits as in both cases, getting fired with fault or accepting to leave deliberately, which is then also your own fault.At least that's how I understand the rule.
You seem to be eligible for unemployment benefits only, if your employer laid you off, because he is financially unable to continue to pay you a salary.
I don't know if that is the same in Germany, I doubt it. According to this German site anybody who has at least worked for one year - and payed during that year unemployment taxes - within the last three years. There are no condition which make your eligibility dependent as to why and how you lost your job, it seems.
The amount of the benefits and the length they are paid out depends on how long you had worked and paid unemployment taxes. gives you an overview that states that if you paid unemployment tax for two years in your previous job, you will get unemployment benefits for one year.
When your eligibility for unemployment benefits are exhausted you still can apply for unemployment help, which are benefits lower than unemployment benefits. I would say this goes a bit too much in detail and would cost me quite some time to come with all the links and information.
The difference to the US seems to be mainly in the eligibility requirements and in the different labor laws concering being employed "at will" in the US without formal work contracts and labor law protections against "firing" someone "at will" from one day to the other.
May be Detlef knows more about the current regulations in Germany and also how long they are paid out. I think they have changed these laws lately.
So, I see a big difference between the requirements an American must fullfil to be eligible for unemployment benefits (and thus most probably also to register as unemployed) vis a vis a German. In the US it is dependent on why and how you lost your job. In Germany it doesn't seem to be the case.
The Federal Unemployment Tax, at an effective rate of 0.8% (maximum $56 per year) is paid solely by employers, not workers, and is not counted in, nor deducted from, an employee's wages. With the exception of three states (Pennsylvania being the only one of the three I could find), the state unemployment taxes are also imposed entirely on employers. And the totals borne by employees are tiny -- for Pennsylvania in 2004 and 2005, the maximum was $7.20 per year, which is pretty close to an insignificant sum; in 2003 it was $1.60; from 1997-2002, it was zero.
Unless one contends that amounts paid by employers on behalf of their workers constitutes a "hidden" income tax on employees (a favorite argument of the extreme right, by the way, in their drive to completely unfetter businesses), unemployment taxes in the U.S. should be seen in the same manner as Workmen's Compensation taxes: as part of the ordinary cost of running any business with employees.
This whole thing brings me back to the point I made before about Republicans capitalizing on this problem. I think there are real problems that the American poor and working classes are facing, but it's extremely difficult to discuss these problems with people on the left because of depredations that have been done by the right under the rhetoric of low taxes. Any discussion about the tax burden on the poor triggers defensiveness (I'm not directing this at you, Maven, you're comment just brought it to mind). Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
The question was raised that I made general comments about length and amount of the unemployment benefits in Germany to be higher than in the US and I tried to respond in several comments to bring in some data about that.
That the unemployment contributions are made in the US by the employer and are not deducted from the employee's gross salary wasn't something I thought about in this context. Is it important (to the unemployed benefits receiver) who paid the unemployment taxes, when you just want to compare the difference on the amount and length the benefits paid out to an unemployed persons in Germany and the US?
Without spending too much time wandering afield from your basic point regarding differences between German and U.S. benefits and application requirements, I think that it is relevant to some degree "who paid the unemployment taxes". Very briefly, here's why:
You are very right. Thanks for explaining too the differences in the payment modalities in Germany vis a vis the US.
And you find out that the answer is "not enough."
The system is set up so that couples with both partners working are generally ok. If one person loses their job, the other can at least buy groceries even if they have a pretty low income. Most large payments (house and car) can be deferred for several months before things come crashing down. I lived next door to someone who made no mortgage payments for two years--the bank put up with it because their other choice was to foreclose and end up with a house to dispose of.
