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I just went through my check-stubs, for the last 3 years. As a union construction worker, I work for many different employers every year, through my union hall's hiring referral system. This happens to millions of AFL/CIO - employed Americans, every year. So I receive check-stubs from many employers, in many different formats, during any given year.
Each employer, (on every check stub), shows the 'employee contribution' that is deducted for unemployment funds. Sometimes the deduction is called 'State Unemployment Insurance (SUI)' as Busch Electric Construction Inc. (in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania), terms it. Sometimes it is termed 'Pennsylvania Unemp. SUTA', as Franklin Electric, LP (in Pittsburgh, PA), puts it. Or it is put down as 'PA Unemployment Compensation (UC) Fund', as Lighthouse Electric Company, Inc. calls it. Or it is deducted as 'PA UC (Unemployment Comp)', by Precision Electrical Contractors, Inc. In the case of Hoffman Elec., Inc., my wage deduction is mysteriously abbreviated as 'EE SUTA PA' (the 'U' is for unemployment); or it's termed (and deducted) as 'SDI' by Chapman Corporation (& you got me by the short ones what any letter means, but it's the same deduction. Maybe the 'S' means State). Fallon Electric Co., Inc., in Pittsburgh, calls it 'PA State Unemployment Compensation (UC)'. Powell Electric Corporation calls it 'State Unemployment Insurance (SUI)'. These seven employer-check-deduction-entry-titles are just a few examples of check stubs I currently have at hand. The deduction title entries are all indisputable and very proveable facts.
Conversely and simultaneously, each employer shows zero dollars that I have earned, or have had deducted, for my contractually-obligated medical plan. (Local # 5, IBEW, AFL-CIO secured.) As a currently unemployed person, I can say that I owe my union's medical insurance plan $280 per week, or $7 dollars per hour, if I want my family and myself to get medical coverage. The employers, insurance companies, and government are all very willing to tell me how much I am worth, when they are telling me how much I am costing them, and hence, how much I OWE THEM. But they aren't willing to put it in writing, at least not as far as a tax preparation expert such as yourself can see. That particular contractual obligation, between employee and employer, is not reflected on my stubs.
'Employee contributions' are only one part of the contract wages. Only one part of the employment contract is reported to employees on the stubs, whether the contributions are to unemployment funds or medical insurance funds, or FICA, or Medicare, or retirement pension, or Social Security, etc. But my union sisters and brothers make two figures in dollars per hour, in terms of benefits, that are not on our pay stubs. And we make two figures in dollars per hour on our pay checks, where the pay stubs come from. The deductions by employer companies, that are shown as entries for 'unemployment funds' on pay stubs -- those deductions represent only part of the total compensation package that my employment contract secures for me, (thanks to my union).
You discussed unemployment as a 'Federal Program' in another post on this thread, but the diverse United states individually administer the federal unemployment program, and are entitled to levy taxes for it.
As you pointed out, the 'matching' concept comes with FICA and Medicare. The same holds true for pensions, SS, profit-sharing, &tc. In this context, all that the term 'matching' means is that some of the money comes from our employee gross wages, and some of the money comes from the employer as part of our contractually-mandated compensation. That means I worked for it, and the employers OWE IT TO ME, though it isn't on my stubs. And there are non-matched funds that are part of our total compensation per hour, that are not listed on tax documents as 'wages', but they OWE it to ME.
That employer-contribution part of our compensation, in either Unemployment or Medical Insurance, is not reflected on the pay stubs issued from the company to the employee, for the purposes of taxation. The same goes for FICA, Medicare, Social Security, etc. Both the 'employee' and 'employer' portions of our compensation come from our task of 'making the employers money' every hour, whether we can deduct it or not. Did I earn my medical plan, according to your rationale? (If not, please tell the Feds I'm not worth that much per hour to insure.) No matter, I surely earned my unemployment.
By the way, it isn't 'wit', it is 'whit'. Maybe you meant it matters not a 'bit'. and I think whit and bit are both Chaucer-era Middle English, early Anglo-Saxon shyte, like might have come from the Wife of Bath in Canterbury Tales. Regardless, L O love.
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