The answer to the recession is to make people more desperate?
Barry Ritholtz at Big Picture, noting suggestions by Sen. Jim Bunning, Sen. Jon Kyl and Tom DeLay that unemployment benefits give people an incentive to be lazy, poses a question:
How do they explain the fact that historically, these recurring epidemics of laziness break out at EXACTLY the same time that the business cycle collapses, while that laziness is miraculously cured at the very moment when jobs become available?
In fact, Rittholz poses the question as a graph:
“… there are still well over five unemployed for every job opening (near the recent record of over six, though there was an improvement in the number of job openings),” Ritholtz concludes. “The un- and under- employment rates speak for themselves. Comments like these should really be beneath any reasonable level of civil discourse. It is pathetic that they’re not.”
For some people, unemployment benefits probably do ease the pressure to get back into the job market aggressively. I agree with that observation. On the other hand, jobs can’t be created by making people more desperate to get them. The economy doesn’t work like that.
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415 comments Add your comment
Paul
March 11th, 2010
12:04 pm
DeLay’s dancing. People still listen to him? Bunning’s on his way out, Kyle should be.
I think the lazy ones are the ones who take these guys seriously.
Nice graph. Data to support an opinion.
What a novel concept.
Mick
March 11th, 2010
12:04 pm
For many its the difference between complete poverty versus minimal sustainability.
joe matarotz
March 11th, 2010
12:05 pm
Too bad there isn’t a way to put Congress on unemployment and see how they like it. These guys are lower than whale scat.
stands for decibels
March 11th, 2010
12:05 pm
suggestions by Sen. Jim Bunning, Sen. Jon Kyl and Tom DeLay
I’ve got a suggestion for those three gentlemen involving rather large objects and various sensitive orifices.
Paul
March 11th, 2010
12:06 pm
sfd
I almost felt guilty for laughing at that….
Outhouse GoKart
March 11th, 2010
12:12 pm
Well that chart says it all. Officially no one is lazy. We are all good, good hearted, victims, in this together, intelligent, good dancers, hard workers and on and on and on.
Now if we just had a chart that represented us having no murders, thiefs, bandits, robbers, thugs, drug sellers, prostitutes, extortionists, fornicators, etc then all of societies ills would be resolved.
God Bless Amercia and the picture graph!!
Outhouse GoKart
March 11th, 2010
12:14 pm
Dont worry sfd, Obama has got that too!
RW-(the original)
March 11th, 2010
12:14 pm
Isn’t the finding of this graph in direct opposition with Jay B’s analysis of it? Where the graph says Americans get lazy is when there are jobs and where it says Americans get motivated is when there are the most people out of work.
Fly-On-The-Wall
March 11th, 2010
12:16 pm
But somehow someone will still this as lazy people just need to get a job. Just wait, someone will eventually bring this up. Oh and they don’t want to pay for these dead-beats to get back on their feet either.
Outhouse GoKart
March 11th, 2010
12:17 pm
Lazy people do need to get a job.
jefferson
March 11th, 2010
12:22 pm
You can’t draw if you never worked.
Normal
March 11th, 2010
12:23 pm
I said it earlier this morning. Thank G-d for President Obama, for without him, some here would have no purpose in life.
Fly-On-The-Wall
March 11th, 2010
12:23 pm
But OGK, are you saying that the people shown on this graph are lazy? Is it all of them, part of them, a few of them? The point is to help them.
NowReally
March 11th, 2010
12:23 pm
This conversation has given me a lot to think about if I were unemployed:
15% would go to Electricity Bill
3% would go to Water Bill
80% would go to Mortgage (includes taxes and insurance)
11% would go to Food
I would not have anyting to pay phone bill (land line), trash, health insurance, gas or car insurance. The good news is that I am not unemployed and I actually have emergency funds and a 410K to deplete, if necessary.
Thank God for actually allowing me to have a good career and the ability to save for my future. Otherwise, I would just be considered lazy after putting in 40 hours a week, for 25 years.
RW-(the original)
March 11th, 2010
12:24 pm
I guess a second look at the graph means that the author is saying that the unemployed get motivated at the peaks and start bringing the number down. Freaking graphs are worse than statistics.
Later y’all….
Mick
March 11th, 2010
12:25 pm
**Lazy people do need to get a job**
Yes they do or at least sign up for military service for front line duty.
godless heathen
March 11th, 2010
12:25 pm
The numbers on the graph are for Initial Claims. They get motivated when the benefits expire.
jefferson
March 11th, 2010
12:26 pm
If you have one foot in fire and the other in ice — on average you are ok.
stands for decibels
March 11th, 2010
12:29 pm
I guess a second look at the graph means that the author is saying that the unemployed get motivated at the peaks
At the risk of being stands for pedantry, I think Jay wasn’t going for peaks so much as the official begin/end of a given recession period. (Maybe that’s a distinction without a difference.)
stands for decibels
March 11th, 2010
12:32 pm
For many its the difference between complete poverty versus minimal sustainability.
Damn dirty commie.
But seriously. Earlier in the 00s, after (cough, mumble) years of steady self-sufficiency via employment in Teh Glorious Private Sector, I found myself qualifying for those incentive-killing, overly-generous unemployment benefits for a few weeks. (Everything turned out fine soon after, and I got back on track, thanks for asking.)
Yes, I had lived well within my means all that time, so yes, we had enough funding to make it through the rough patch without even approaching insolvency. But it was sobering, and I couldn’t help but wonder how someone who hadn’t been quite so fortunate would make a go of it were this unemployment benefit the sole source of income. I figured it would’ve covered my monthly mortgage payment with enough left over to, maybe, provide rice and beans for my family. Which we’d cook over a wood fire, since I wouldn’t be able to pay my utility bill.
Were I to try to live on this income alone, we’d literally have to move into a one-bedroom apartment and hang tight. And hey, that’s better than a lot of people on this planet have it. But once that paltry means of support is gone, you’re on the damn street, or begging for a place to sleep at best.
And as jefferson points out @ 12.22, this is funding any worker has been paying into throughout his employment history. And these aforementioned current/former Congrefsional scumbuckets think it’s a freaking disincentive to look for work? What planet do they live on?
Hef
March 11th, 2010
12:36 pm
I got a question,when did life become a free ride? Also how many rights does one individual have? Right to health care,right to work,………………………..etc
Midori
March 11th, 2010
12:37 pm
Stands @ 12:05:
Del
March 11th, 2010
12:37 pm
Bunning certainly didn’t look good and left himself open for criticism, however, the way he and kyle who spoke up for him are being painted is disingenuous. Bunning wasn’t against extending benefits his point was it should be paid for by utilizing unspent money from the bail out appropriations. The democrats didn’t want it that way making “paygo” a charade.
Jenifer
March 11th, 2010
12:40 pm
Let me get this straight — Bunning, Kyl and DeLay believe unemployment benefits cause people not to seek work. So that would mean we have no reason in this country to be screaming “JOBS, JOBS, JOBS”. Heck, following the line of thought of these three lunatics, there must be plenty of jobs out there.
Jenifer
March 11th, 2010
12:42 pm
Hello Midori.
Outhouse GoKart
March 11th, 2010
12:43 pm
“The point is to help them.”
The point is for them to help themselves.
Hef
March 11th, 2010
12:43 pm
Those three are’nt the “lunatics”,we the taxpayers are for allowing benefits to be extended to 99 weeks.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
March 11th, 2010
12:44 pm
Well, these godly Conservative Republicans are dead-Right. Unemployment benefits make people lazy. When they’re getting checks, they got no reason to get out there and kiss as many butts as they can or maybe clean peoples windshields for a quarter or even get out there at innerstate exits and hold up a sign saying Unemployed and Broke. That’s the kind of thing that made this country Great before the libruls stepped in and ruint it.
It was a sad day for America when lazy unemployed bums started getting unemployment checks. And I know the other Conservatives on this blog will agree with me.
Have a good p.m. everybody.
Hef
March 11th, 2010
12:44 pm
How does our Govnmnt continue to spend what it does’nt have?
NowReally
March 11th, 2010
12:44 pm
Right now we only have a RIGHT to breathe air, but soon they will figure out away to charge us for doing that.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
March 11th, 2010
12:46 pm
Cool, Rush Limbaugh survived submersion in the Hampton Roads Bay Bridge Tunnel, never missed a moment of the truth.
But here at this blog, the truth? Eh, not so much….
Jenifer
March 11th, 2010
12:46 pm
It stands to reason then, that if there is indeed an abundant supply of jobs in the US, the credit goes to Obama.
Alright!
Bob
March 11th, 2010
12:47 pm
Bunning was stupid to think congress would pay any attention to pay-go, it’s a photo op bill signing. And him thinking we cut cut ten billion from other spending ?
Hef
March 11th, 2010
12:47 pm
Now-I think you mean Tax us
Outhouse GoKart
March 11th, 2010
12:48 pm
NowReally. The problem here is humans breath out carbon dioxide. Perhaps an individual carbon credits program is needed to dissuade those who might breath excessively or they could hold their breath.
stands for decibels
March 11th, 2010
12:48 pm
The point is for them to help themselves.
Maybe they can get themselves jerbs where they get to whack off on the Interwebs all “working” day long, each and every “working” day, p!ssing and moaning about how lazy everyone else is, ’specially those Osamma Bin Kenyan voters.
Anyways, this lazy wad o’ f–k has to go back to producin’. Later, kids.
Outhouse GoKart
March 11th, 2010
12:48 pm
Jen, fact or opinion?
NowReally
March 11th, 2010
12:50 pm
Hef, I don’t mean TAX, I mean CHARGE. I don’t get taxed directly for water or electricity, so I would expect the same of AIR.
Paul
March 11th, 2010
12:51 pm
Hi Midori!!!
John Birch
March 11th, 2010
12:52 pm
The quesiton is why is extending unemployment benefits part of a jobs bill? How does that create jobs we ask?
Kamchak
March 11th, 2010
12:53 pm
Right now we only have a RIGHT to breathe air, but soon they will figure out away to charge us for doing that.
Just as soon as someone can figure out how to turn it into a commodity.
Paul
March 11th, 2010
12:53 pm
OHGK
One more time. She answered that yesterday.
If there’s no link, it’s her opinion.
If she puts in a link, then it is FACT. Pure, complete, unassailable, complete in its entirety, fact. Which you cannot challenge, discount, challenge, ignore or disagree with. ’cause it’s a fact.
Links don’t lie -
@@
March 11th, 2010
12:54 pm
And to think….it was your own Bill Clinton who said this:
“For 15 years, going back to my service as governor of Arkansas, I have worked to reform welfare, to make it a second chance and not a way of life.
What exactly did he mean?
I’m outta here.
Paul
March 11th, 2010
12:54 pm
Kamchak
Just as soon as someone can figure out how to turn it into a commodity.
Already have. It’s called ‘Cap and Trade.’
Matilda
March 11th, 2010
12:55 pm
Hef,
You forgot the right to eat poo and die.
BTW, just because someone’s hours are not spent in pursuit of the almighty dollar, it does not necessarily mean that person is lazy. The most difficult jobs in the world often garner no wage at all, but somebody has to do them. Many of us work at least two full-time jobs, but only get paid for one.
Outhouse GoKart
March 11th, 2010
12:58 pm
Perhaps if we had some major earthquakes here in the US then many of the unemployed would fall victim thereby reducing the unemployment numbers over all.
Perhaps Obama and Pelosi might push that idea…
Normal
March 11th, 2010
12:58 pm
Joke of the day:
> Sometime this year, we taxpayers will again receive another ‘Economic
> Stimulus’ payment.
> This is indeed a very exciting program, and I’ll explain it by using a Q & A format:
> Q. What is an ‘Economic Stimulus’ payment ?
> A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
> Q.. Where will the government get this money ?
> A. From taxpayers.
> Q. So the government is giving me back my own money ?
> A. Only a smidgen of it.
> Q. What is the purpose of this payment ?
> A. The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.
> Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
> A. Shut up.
> Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U.S. economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:
> * If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will
> go to China or Sri Lanka …
> * If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs.
> * If you purchase a computer, it will go to India , Taiwan or China .
> * If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico ,
> Honduras and Guatemala ..
> * If you buy an efficient car, it will go to Japan or Korea .
> * If you purchase useless stuff, it will go to Taiwan .
> * If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.
> Instead, keep the money in America by:
> 1) Spending it at yard sales, or
> 2) Going to ball games, or
> 3) Spending it on prostitutes, or
> 4) Beer or
> 5) Tattoos.
> (These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S. )
> Conclusion:
> Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink beer all day !
> No need to thank me, I’m just glad I could be of help.
Normal
March 11th, 2010
1:00 pm
Cool, Rush Limbaugh survived submersion in the Hampton Roads Bay Bridge Tunnel
Which proves there is no G-d…
Hef
March 11th, 2010
1:02 pm
Matilda-Yes ur right adding them to my ever growing list for libs. Work 2 full time jobs and only get paid for one? Econmic major I see
Paul
March 11th, 2010
1:03 pm
Normal
You been talkin’ to Redneck and getalife?