Editorial: Jobless want work more than unemployment insurance

ShareThis

To cushion the crush of the recession, Congress has repeatedly extended the duration of unemployment insurance until now it's possible to receive benefits for as long as 99 weeks in some states especially hard hit by joblessness. Around 11.4 million people are receiving the benefits, half for longer than six months, at a cost of $10 billion a month.

Now, The Washington Post is reporting, some in Congress question whether payments intended to be a temporary bridge between jobs are instead morphing into a permanent and very expensive entitlement.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., raised a storm of protest when he briefly blocked a routine extension of the program on the grounds that the federal government had no way to pay for it. The Post quoted Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., as saying, "If anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."

At an average of 36 percent of the lost wages, it's not much of a disincentive. In Washington, D.C., the average weekly wage is $1,421; the maximum weekly unemployment benefit, $359.

Further proof that unemployment benefits are not keeping job seekers sitting on the couch came this past weekend at a college campus just south of Washington. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., arranged for three-dozen agencies of the federal government, one of the few big organizations actively hiring, to hold a jobs fair.

Seven thousand people showed up, filling all the area parking lots and bringing traffic to a halt on the interstate. Many of them waited five hours or more to talk to recruiters and be walked through the process of applying for a federal job. When the fair closed, another thousand had to be turned away.

An official with the National Employment Law Center had a simple explanation for the Post of why so many people are out of work for so long: There are six unemployed Americans for every available job.

Since the start of the recession, the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs, and only recently has it begun adding jobs faster than it's losing them. In an economy where jobs are going begging, unemployment benefits might rightfully be considered a form of welfare, but we are a long, long way from that point.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)