KRUGMAN: War On the Unemployed

[Purveyor]

Is life too easy for the unemployed? You may not think so, and I certainly don’t think so. But that, remarkably, is what many and perhaps most Republicans believe. And they’re acting on that belief: there’s a nationwide movement under way to punish the unemployed, based on the proposition that we can cure unemployment by making the jobless even more miserable.

Consider, for example, the case of North Carolina. The state was hit hard by the Great Recession, and its unemployment rate, at 8.8 percent, is among the highest in the nation, higher than in long-suffering California or Michigan. As is the case everywhere, many of the jobless have been out of work for six months or more, thanks to a national environment in which there are three times as many people seeking work as there are job openings.

Nonetheless, the state’s government has just sharply cut aid to the unemployed. In fact, the Republicans controlling that government were so eager to cut off aid that they didn’t just reduce the duration of benefits; they also reduced the average weekly benefit, making the state ineligible for about $700 million in federal aid to the long-term unemployed.

It’s quite a spectacle, but North Carolina isn’t alone: a number of other states have cut unemployment benefits, although none at the price of losing federal aid. And at the national level, Congress has been allowing extended benefits introduced during the economic crisis to expire, even though long-term unemployment remains at historic highs.

So what’s going on here? Is it just cruelty? Well, the G.O.P., which believes that 47 percent of Americans are “takers” mooching off the job creators, which in many states is denying health care to the poor simply to spite President Obama, isn’t exactly overflowing with compassion. But the war on the unemployed isn’t motivated solely by cruelty; rather, it’s a case of meanspiritedness converging with bad economic analysis.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/opinion/krugman-the-war-on-the-unemployed.html

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. North Carolina has essentially lost its political mind (there was no heart to lose for the right)

It is hard to fathom how much we are being driven cruelly backwards.

[mick063]

2. The standard Republican sell goes as follows:

Lower taxes, to lure in business, to create jobs.

So then, the nutcase Republicans chase off the skilled workforce to other states, while complaining at the groundbreaking of the new facility they "lured in" (at the expense of taxpayers), that there is a lack of skilled workers.

Corporate America expects you to move from state to state, job to job on a whim. As they chase the tax breaks to the next place that offers a sweeter deal, they will punish you for not playing the "musical chair" tax giveaway with them. Diminish unemployment insurance, and folks are forced to sell the house and play the taxpayer giveaway game. The middle class has become migrant workers.

[neverforget]

3. It's the Republican vision of America and

it's frightening.

[leftstreet]

4. Where is a National Jobs Plan?