This weekend, the first jobs report of the year came out. While only 4% of Americans seem to be officially unemployed, there's more behind these statistics than is apparent at first glance.
With last week's successful Republican filibuster of a bill that would have lengthened long-term unemployment benefits by an additional three months, many Americans currently searching for jobs may feel new financial pressure to stop searching for jobs in favor of receiving extended unemployment benefits. So while a large number of the 91 million Americans "not looking for jobs" are people who are retired, in school, etc. (i.e. people who actually are not looking for jobs), an increasing amount might soon be people who want jobs but have stopped officially looking for them because of the slight financial benefit of officially extended unemployment.
Politicians who oppose the bill, such as Republican Senator Rand Paul, believe that the passage of the measure would "provide some disincentive" for the unemployed to find jobs quickly. Ironically, Congress' failure to pass the bill may ultimately lead to an outcome that Republicans hoped to avoid with the filibuster of the bill in the fist place. The unemployment statistic may decrease, but for an overall negative reason. What is your stance on the bill? How do you interpret these statistics? What steps do you think the government should be taking right now to improve the situation?
Article 1: CNN
Article 2: Washington Post
Article 3: NYT
1 comment:
It's difficult to evaluate whether extending unemployment benefits would reduce the unemployment rate because the articles about unemployment that I've read thus far seem to have only speculative or theoretical claims. I'm not sure if there's a way to track the effect of unemployment benefits on people's job searches or if history has tilted in favor (or not) in extended unemployment benefits, but perhaps we will learn about this this semester. Although in another sense, I find it a bit hard to believe Representative James Lankford (R-OK) when he says that he opposed the bill because he thought it sent the message, "Times are tough. We should make times tougher on our kids to make it easier on us, and then feel better.”
This Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/01/30/are-there-91-million-americans-on-the-sidelines-looking-for-work/) actually says that the official Bureau of Labor Statistics report classifies the 91 million into different groups (with numerical estimates):
"•6 million want a job now but cannot find one.
•2.4 million did not actively search for work.
•1.5 million did not search for work because they are students or left the job market for family reasons, illness or some other factor.
•900,000 are discouraged and think no job is available.
Add that up, along with the 10.3 million who are unemployed, and then maybe you could say there are 21 million people who are “on the sidelines” of the job market." I'm curious as to how this number compares to that of previous years.
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