Does unemployment insurance keep you unemployed?
Is unemployment insurance keeping you unemployed?
It’s not a new argument: that staying on unemployment benefits for too long actually encourages people to stay unemployed rather than to be out pounding the pavement for a new job. The debate was brought back into the spotlight last week as Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning single-handedly held up an extension of the latest extension of unemployment benefits, objecting to the $10 billion price tag of the extension. About 11.4 million unemployed people now collect unemployment payments—half of them have been received payments for more than six months, the usual limit. But under multiple extensions enacted by Congress, workers can now collect unemployment for as long as 99 weeks in state with the highest unemployment rates. Are these out-of-work people gaming the system a little too much?
Guests:
Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project
Sylvia A. Allegretto, PhD, economist at the Institute for Research on Labor & Employment at the University of California, Berkeley
- Patt Morrison for March 9, 2010
- Toyota seeks control of its image, while Toyota owners seek control of their cars
- Biden in Israel
- Does unemployment insurance keep you unemployed?
- "Tattoos on the Heart"
Also on this episode
Events
Comedy Congress Live
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
7:30 p.m.
- 9 p.m.
The comedic material emanating from Washington D.C., and state capitols across the country, is enough to make any sitcom writer jealous, even if most of that comedy is unintentional. Our motto on Comedy Congress is that just when politics makes you want to cry, it’s usually best to laugh.
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