What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
Now, more than ever, we are told, Republicans hate the poor. Only an evil party, we are told, would dare prevent the extension of unemployment benefits. Never mind that Democrats were willing to stall those benefits rather than give an inch on deficit reduction offsets.
But wait! Mickey Kaus alerts us that "the Obama W[hite] H[ouse] itself studied whether extended UE [unemployment] benefits discouraged people from going back to work" -- as the New York Times reports:
looked into whether the troubled housing market created “job-lock” by preventing potential employees from selling homes and moving toward new opportunities. They also considered whether extended unemployment benefits deterred others from going back to work.
Of course, that possibility was written off as statistically insignificant. But look -- as our President might say. We shouldn't play politics with unemployment benefits. This is an issue that ought to transcend party. Continue the benefits. Offset the spending. Get on with it. Right? But then, the wisdom of such an approach is inaccessible to a party led by a Speaker who is certain that the extension of unemployment benefits "creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you could name."
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Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
Republicans should ask--demand!--that the administration release the results of its study. Did UE benefits have no anti-job, anti-work impact or just too little for the White House to care about? If we are going to spend money on more Keynesian stimulus, why not spend it in way that doesn't require people NOT to go to work. Payroll tax cut would do that. Even just sending people checks would do that. ... That said, I suspect GOPs are losing this message war and will cave soon.
Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
Mickey, welcome to the text side of Ricochet.
My sense is that we are living in an era of policy by assertion. To your point, where is the analysis of option A versus option B? Or any analytics applied to any issue at all? Instead we have to pass the various multi-thousand page bills in order to find out what is in them, to paraphrase Speaker Pelosi, or to save President Obama. And why can't we extend UE benefits by searching in the $3.6T federal couch for some loose change? What happened to public accountability of the use of the public's funds?
The behavior of the self-serving public servants of Bell, California certainly don't inspire much confidence in the trajectory of our ever more muscular public sector.
May '10
Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
Eschewing policies that a majority of Americans loathe has apparently not crossed the Democrats' minds, so class warfare it is!
My favorite quote from Obama's speech is his explanation that people seeking more unemployment benefits are "not looking for a handout." Technically I suppose that's true... they're looking for another extension to an already generous handout.
Reading George's link, I feel much better about Ohio - until I remember that we'll all wind up bailing out California in some form!
May '10
Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
Take this for what it's worth: Out here in the real world (Cleveland, OH), I've known 15-20 people in my life who have been on unemployment. Not one--not a single one--has used the system as it is designed. Some run out the string on their benefits before looking for work, some work under the table and don't go on the books until the string is out, some who do seasonal work consider it "their winter bonus" while they plow snow for cash, and some refuse work until they find the perfect job.
No more extensions, and boo hoo,
May '10
Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
I don't understand why no Republican has used the "D" word -- as in Dole. I think everyone understands that it is a slippery slope from help when the economy is weak to a permanent condition and nothing expresses that permanent condition better than the concept of the dole. If we are in for an extended period of high unemployment then the Republicans are right to insist that the benefits be funded through cuts elsewhere. Because there will be another extension after this one and another one after that. There is plenty of unspent Stimulus money remaining. Couldn't they just reallocate that?
May '10
Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
I just watched a recorded Cavuto from yesterday & I think you folks have it all wrong. Cavuto interviewed a D Congressman who claimed there was consensus among economists that the multiplier effect was between 1.5 - 1.7 on every $ paid out in unemployment benefits. Rather than being against this, clearly we should:
1. Take all remaining stimulus funds and put it to this dynamic and worthwhile endeavour.
2. Accelerate the pace of the toxic business climate the govt. is creating to encourage further unemployment, thus stimulating the economy by increasing productivity with the splendid multiplier. Just think of what Cap & Trade, card check et al will do for economic growth through unemployment!
Why didn't we think of this before? What planet do these people come from? Is it an alien invasion?
May '10
Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
P.S. I think Rob Long should latch on to this as a screen play idea. Invasion of the body snatchers replaced by invasion of the economy snatchers.
May '10
Re: What if Unemployment Benefits Don't Create Jobs, Asked White House Experts
If that's the case, shouldn't everyone be given unemployment benefits and watch the economy explode? Furthermore, if extending benefits to 99 weeks will stimulate job creation, wouldn't extending benefits even longer create more jobs.
Why has no one on the right brought up the irony that we need to extend UI benefits because people can't find jobs in the system that Obama, Pelosi & company created? I thought we needed the stimulus to create jobs.
I keep waiting to hear this emphasized by the Republican leadership in Congress, yet all I hear is crickets.