A Common Sense Proposal Regarding Unemployment Insurance

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Unemployment insurance shouldn't be a political football. For some folks it is their only source of income when they lose their job. They live pay check to pay check and have no savings, friends, relatives, et cetera that they can rely on if they lose their job. Unemployment insurance is the only thing that stands between them and starving, being homeless, freezing to death, living under a bridge, robbing, turning to prostitution, et cetera.

Why not tie unemployment insurance to the unemployment rate. Let's say normal unemployment is six percent. And in normal times the average unemployment benefits last for twenty six weeks. For every one quarter percent increase in unemployment over six percent the benefits period would be extended by twenty six weeks.

The formula could be tweaked but the fate of the unemployed shouldn't be tied to the vagaries of the political process. We don't do that with any other kind of insurance.

DSB

[CTyankee]

1. I thought that we used to do that...it wasn't automatic but Congress would act

on UI when a recession hit...that is, until this band of thugs moved into the Capitol...