in its bill
to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. The bill does,
indeed, extend the payroll tax cut for another year, but, beyond that,
there is a lot to dislike. To help pay for the package, for instance,
the bill would cut social spending more deeply than is already
anticipated under current budget caps without asking wealthy Americans
to contribute a penny in new taxes.
Related in Opinion
More on the Economy »
Readers’ Comments
Share your thoughts.
- Post a Comment »
- Read All Comments (1) »
¶
It also holds the expiring provisions hostage to irrelevant but noxious
proposals to undo existing environmental protections. Worse, it would
make unemployment compensation considerably stingier than it is now.
¶
At last count,
13.3 million people were officially unemployed and 5.7 million of them
had been out of work for more than six months. At no time in the last 60
years has long-term unemployment been so high for so long.
¶
But Republican lawmakers would have you believe that the nation cannot
afford jobless benefits and that many recipients are not so much needy,
as lazy, disinclined to work as long as benefits are available. When was
the last time any Republican lawmaker tried to live on $289 a week, the
amount of the average benefit?
¶
Under current policy, federal benefits kick in when state-provided
benefits run out, typically after 26 weeks. The duration of the federal
payouts depends on the level of unemployment in a given state.
Currently, workers in 22 of the hardest-hit states — including
California, New Jersey and Connecticut — qualify for up to 73 more weeks
of aid. In five other states — including New York — up to 67 more weeks
are available. In the remaining 23 states, maximum federal benefits
range from 34 weeks to 60 weeks. The cost to continue the program for
another year would be about $45 billion.
¶
The Republican plan would cut $11 billion of that in 2012 by slashing up
to 40 weeks from the program, reducing by more than half the maximum 73
weeks now available. Because of the way the program is structured, the
biggest cuts would come in the states with the highest unemployment.
Millions of jobless workers would be quickly left without subsistence,
and the weak economy would be weakened further by the drop in consumer
spending.
¶
The bill would also impose onerous — and gratuitous — requirements on
people who apply for jobless benefits. It would allow states to drug
test applicants and would require recipients to be high-school graduates
or working toward an equivalency degree.
¶
Curtailing jobless benefits makes sense once hiring is clearly on the
rebound, which is not yet the case. Joblessness remains high, not
because the unemployed are lazy or on drugs, but because there are too
many applicants for too few jobs. Labor statistics show that if all the
job openings in America were filled tomorrow, nearly 10 million people
would still be unemployed. That works out to about four jobless workers
for every opening. In a normal job market, the expected ratio would be
about one to one.
¶
We need job creation, like the spending and infrastructure programs in
President Obama’s jobs bills, which Republicans scoffed at. Lawmakers
could also take smaller steps to help the long-term jobless, like
outlawing discrimination in hiring against unemployed job-seekers.
¶
In the meantime, the only humane and economically sensible choice is to
renew unemployment benefits at a level that is up to the scale of the
crisis. The Republican plan 
No comments:
Post a Comment