So Where Do We Draw The Line On Extended Unemployment Insurance, And Why? [View all]

[stopbush]

As one of the 99ers who has exhausted their Fed unemployment extensions, I have a question to ask: what is the proper length of time for extending benefits, and why?

I ask, because it seems to me that any kind of cut-off for ending such benefits is arbitrary. If you make the argument that an unemployed person needed those benefits at week 26 or week 55 or week 99 to provide them with a lifeline (and - as the argument goes -to give them the resources to look for work), then how do you make the argument that they no longer need the benefit at week 100 or 120 or 150?

If the argument is, "well, they can't go on forever," or, "99 weeks is plenty of time to find a job, so it must be the person's fault that they can't find work," or, "well, that's just the way it is," then what's wrong with making the same arguments to limit the length of benefits to, say, 26 weeks?

What about workers who have paid into unemployment for decades without using it, compared to people who have gone on and off unemployment many times over the decades? Aren't those people who didn't use it entitled to a little consideration when it comes to the 99 week cut-off (BTW - I'm not one of those people)?

The fact is that the longer one is out of work, the less likely it is they will be hired because employers look down on such people. That has nothing to do with the person themselves and everything to do with a perception on the part of the employer. Yet, those people are cut-off from that lifeline at a date certain, even though the job market and economic conditions haven't gotten better, for them or many others.

On the one hand, being for any kind of cut-off date sorta puts you in the "cutting off benefits will get them off their lazy asses to find a job, and pronto" claque. Thinking that "we simply can't afford it" is a purely political position.

Are we as a nation moving in a direction where we accept that a not-insignificant number of our fellow citizens being tossed to the wolves is just fine, while an elite subset of people see their assets grow beyond the hopes of rampant avarice?

Any thoughts?