Displaced Workers Guidebook is mostly useless

I’m not entirely sure why this hulking “Displaced Workers Guidebook” (I guess that is the politically correct term for unemployed folks), was making the rounds on Fox 2 today since it is filled mostly with broken links, and offers no real solutions for anyone that is unemployed.  It is from the office of John Dingell and was supposed to be a guide to help unemployed workers with assistance when unemployment benefits run out, or find more assistance in general.

The guide can be found here

Highlights

• A lot of the links are broken which is impressive for a 6 month old guide
• Just about all of the training and education programs require money, which is funny since unemployed people about to lose benefits don’t have an income (or much of one).
• Lawrence Tech’s 50% tuition reduction for 400 people is completely used up so that is also useless.
• Ironically one of the resources that is for financial help actually requires you to be employed to get assistance.  I can’t see how that would help “displaced” workers.
• There are only a couple of interesting links as far as I can tell so far, MI Prescription Drug Discount Card.
• Gov Benefits which claims to give out free money as best I can tell for disaster areas, farmers,and simply links back to state departments for unemployment assistance (so again, mostly useless).
• Work Opportunity Tax Credit which is supposed to be used as bait to get an employer to hire you for tax reasons if you qualify.

Since I feel this guide is a total let down and many of the links I’ve tried appear to be broken I’ll supply you with a useful one the Michigan Department of Treasury where you can enter your name to see if you have unclaimed money.  It takes quite some time to get repaid from this if you have unclaimed money but you will get paid eventually.

Bonus for the rest of my readers nationally you can find your Treasury link through this website just click on your state to get directed and claim your lost money.