Published: Thursday, July 15, 2010
IN OUR VIEW / EXTENDING JOBLESS BENEFITS
Indecision is inhumane
By the end of this week, 18,600 laid-off Washingtonians will have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates. As if month after month of fruitless job searching wasn’t stressful enough.
Nationally, the number of Americans who will have lost unemployment benefits by Friday is staggering: 2.5 million. With the national jobless rate at 9.5 percent, not counting those who are working fewer hours then they’d like or those who have given up on finding work, cutting off unemployment checks now would be nothing short of cruel.
And economically short-sighted. Unless the Senate breaks an eight-week impasse over extending benefits, many of these folks will face applying for other government assistance, shifting at least some costs from one federal account to others.
Unemployment checks get spent, quickly and locally, generating demand the private sector can’t currently muster. And most economists aren’t expecting consumer demand to take off in the coming months.
Nearly half of those on the unemployment rolls have been out of work six months or longer, the Labor Department reports. That’s the highest percentage since the Great Depression. It’s not typically for lack of trying — the jobs simply aren’t there.
Still, some argue that continuing to issue unemployment checks creates a disincentive to look for work. That’s hardly the norm, says Sue Ambler, CEO of the Workforce Development Council Snohomish County, which provides help, support and critical lifelines to folks who’ve been laid off.
“Even the maximum unemployment check isn’t enough to run a household,” Ambler said. “These are people who have given up a lot of things, and are barely able to pay rent and feed their family.”
They want to work. What’s missing is opportunity, not initiative.
These people shouldn’t be penalized for an economy that’s far beyond their control. Nor should they be left to wonder whether they’ll have any income at all next week. But that’s the effect of the Senate’s inability to act.
“That angst is just one more emotional toll that they don’t need right now,” Ambler noted.
Democrats want to extend benefits on an emergency basis, meaning they’d borrow the $35 billion or so an extension through November would cost. Republicans, citing the deficit, want it covered by redirecting existing stimulus funds or cutting spending elsewhere. (Many of these same fiscal hawks, interestingly, insist on extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, at a far higher cost to the treasury.)
So compromise, already. Just figure out a way to pass the extension.
Economically, it’s the right thing to do. Morally, it’s the only thing.
Nationally, the number of Americans who will have lost unemployment benefits by Friday is staggering: 2.5 million. With the national jobless rate at 9.5 percent, not counting those who are working fewer hours then they’d like or those who have given up on finding work, cutting off unemployment checks now would be nothing short of cruel.
And economically short-sighted. Unless the Senate breaks an eight-week impasse over extending benefits, many of these folks will face applying for other government assistance, shifting at least some costs from one federal account to others.
Unemployment checks get spent, quickly and locally, generating demand the private sector can’t currently muster. And most economists aren’t expecting consumer demand to take off in the coming months.
Nearly half of those on the unemployment rolls have been out of work six months or longer, the Labor Department reports. That’s the highest percentage since the Great Depression. It’s not typically for lack of trying — the jobs simply aren’t there.
Still, some argue that continuing to issue unemployment checks creates a disincentive to look for work. That’s hardly the norm, says Sue Ambler, CEO of the Workforce Development Council Snohomish County, which provides help, support and critical lifelines to folks who’ve been laid off.
“Even the maximum unemployment check isn’t enough to run a household,” Ambler said. “These are people who have given up a lot of things, and are barely able to pay rent and feed their family.”
They want to work. What’s missing is opportunity, not initiative.
These people shouldn’t be penalized for an economy that’s far beyond their control. Nor should they be left to wonder whether they’ll have any income at all next week. But that’s the effect of the Senate’s inability to act.
“That angst is just one more emotional toll that they don’t need right now,” Ambler noted.
Democrats want to extend benefits on an emergency basis, meaning they’d borrow the $35 billion or so an extension through November would cost. Republicans, citing the deficit, want it covered by redirecting existing stimulus funds or cutting spending elsewhere. (Many of these same fiscal hawks, interestingly, insist on extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, at a far higher cost to the treasury.)
So compromise, already. Just figure out a way to pass the extension.
Economically, it’s the right thing to do. Morally, it’s the only thing.
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