War On The Unemployed<\/a> by Paul Krugman in The New York Times.<\/p>\nThe Text:<\/strong> Is life too easy for the unemployed? You may not think so, and I certainly don\u2019t think so. But that, remarkably, is what many and perhaps most Republicans believe. And they\u2019re acting on that belief: there\u2019s a nationwide movement under way to punish the unemployed, based on the proposition that we can cure unemployment by making the jobless even more miserable.<\/p>\nConsider, for example, the case of North Carolina. The state was hit hard by the Great Recession, and its unemployment rate, at 8.8 percent, is among the highest in the nation, higher than in long-suffering California or Michigan. As is the case everywhere, many of the jobless have been out of work for six months or more, thanks to a national environment in which there are three times as many people seeking work as there are job openings.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, the state\u2019s government has just sharply cut aid to the unemployed. In fact, the Republicans controlling that government were so eager to cut off aid that they didn\u2019t just reduce the duration of benefits; they also reduced the average weekly benefit, making the state ineligible for about $700 million in federal aid to the long-term unemployed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s quite a spectacle, but North Carolina isn\u2019t alone: a number of other states have cut unemployment benefits, although none at the price of losing federal aid. And at the national level, Congress has been allowing extended benefits introduced during the economic crisis to expire, even though long-term unemployment remains at historic highs.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s going on here? Is it just cruelty? Well, the G.O.P., which believes that 47 percent of Americans are \u201ctakers\u201d mooching off the job creators, which in many states is denying health care to the poor simply to spite President Obama, isn\u2019t exactly overflowing with compassion. But the war on the unemployed isn\u2019t motivated solely by cruelty; rather, it\u2019s a case of meanspiritedness converging with bad economic analysis.<\/p>\n
In general, modern conservatives believe that our national character is being sapped by social programs that, in the memorable words of Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, \u201cturn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.\u201d More specifically, they believe that unemployment insurance encourages jobless workers to stay unemployed, rather than taking available jobs.<\/p>\n
Is there anything to this belief? The average unemployment benefit in North Carolina is $299 a week, pretax; some hammock. So anyone who imagines that unemployed workers are deliberately choosing to live a life of leisure has no idea what the experience of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment, is really like. Still, there is some evidence that unemployment benefits make workers a bit more choosy in their job search. When the economy is booming, this extra choosiness may raise the \u201cnon-accelerating-inflation\u201d unemployment rate \u2014 the unemployment rate at which inflation starts to rise, inducing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and choke off economic expansion.<\/p>\n
All of this is, however, irrelevant to our current situation, in which inflation is not a concern and the Fed\u2019s problem is that it can\u2019t get interest rates low enough. While cutting unemployment benefits will make the unemployed even more desperate, it will do nothing to create more jobs \u2014 which means that even if some of those currently unemployed do manage to find work, they will do so only by taking jobs away from those currently employed.<\/p>\n
But wait \u2014 what about supply and demand? Won\u2019t making the unemployed desperate put downward pressure on wages? And won\u2019t lower labor costs encourage job growth? No \u2014 that\u2019s a fallacy of composition. Cutting one worker\u2019s wage may help save his or her job by making that worker cheaper than competing workers; but cutting everyone\u2019s wages just reduces everyone\u2019s income \u2014 and it worsens the burden of debt, which is one of the main forces holding the economy back.<\/p>\n
Oh, and let\u2019s not forget that cutting benefits to the unemployed, many of whom are living hand-to-mouth, will lead to lower overall spending \u2014 again, worsening the economic situation, and destroying more jobs.<\/p>\n
The move to slash unemployment benefits, then, is counterproductive as well as cruel; it will swell the ranks of the unemployed even as it makes their lives ever more miserable.<\/p>\n
Can anything be done to reverse this policy wrong turn? The people out to punish the unemployed won\u2019t be dissuaded by rational argument; they know what they know, and no amount of evidence will change their views. My sense, however, is that the war on the unemployed has been making so much progress in part because it has been flying under the radar, with too many people unaware of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
Well, now you know. And you should be angry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article: War On The Unemployed by Paul Krugman in The New York Times. The Text: Is life too easy for the unemployed? You may not think so, and I certainly don\u2019t think so. But that, remarkably, is what many and perhaps most Republicans believe. And they\u2019re acting on that belief: there\u2019s a nationwide movement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Unemployed](\"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unemployed-war.jpg\")
<\/p>\n