Some Unemployed Find Fault in Extension of Jobless Benefits

SHAILA DEWAN

The New York Times

October 6, 2011 ET

Dan Tolle­son, a research­er and writ­er with a Ph.D. in politics, has been out of work since 2009, except for brief stints as a driv­er. Still, he opposes Pres­ident Obama’s call for Congress to re­new exten­sions on un­employ­ment ben­efits.
“They’re go­ing to end up spending more mon­ey on un­employ­ment ben­efits, while less mon­ey is com­ing in on tax returns,” he said, suggest­ing that the govern­ment should focus on measures that might encour­age busi­nesses to hire. “Far better to relax some of these out­rageous reg­u­lations.”
Make no mis­take — Mr. Tolle­son, 54, has col­lected un­employ­ment checks, saying he had lit­tle choice. But his objection to a pol­icy that         

would prob­a­bly ben­efit him shows just how divisive the question has become of pro­viding a big­ger safety net to the long-term job­less, a common strategy in re­ces­sions.

Pres­ident Obama wants to con­tinue offering ben­efits for an ex­tended pe­riod of time, a maximum of 99 weeks, as is now the case. The measure is part of his jobs bill, which he once again called on Congress to pass in a press               

confer­ence on Thursday.

If the exten­sion is not re­newed, ben­efits for more than 2.2 million people will be curtailed by mid-February, accord­ing to the De­part­ment of La­bor. The Obama admin­istration es­ti­mates that with no exten­sions, a total of six million people will run out of ben­efits over the course of next year.
Un­less job growth picks up sharply, many of those people will struggle to stay out of poverty. Un­employ­ment ben­efits, which av­erage $298 a week, help fam­i­lies and serve as eco­nom­ic stim­ulus because most of the mon­ey gets spent right away on ba­sics. Lib­eral and many centrist economists say that the econ­o­my is too weak now to with­stand the shock of a sharp drop in those pay­ments.
Still, conservatives con­tend that ex­tending               

ben­efits pulls mon­ey from oth­er parts of the econ­o­my, discour­ages people from find­ing work and increases the un­employ­ment rate. Some Re­publican politicians have gone so far as to suggest that people living on un­employ­ment are simply lazy. Even Pres­ident Obama’s pick for head of the Council of Eco­nom­ic Advis­ers, Alan B. Krueger, has acknowl­edged that increas­ing un­employ­ment ben­efits pro­longs un­employ­ment, as conservatives were quick to point out when he was nom­inated in Au­gust.

To some taxpayers, un­employ­ment exten­sions are just an­oth­er big govern­ment expen­di­ture that comes out of their pockets and goes into some­one else’s. Some would rather see the mon­ey spent on projects with a return, like building high­ways and schools. Oth­ers pre­fer free­ing busi­nesses of expens­es like the health care plan and new reg­u­lations.
      

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

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