Unemployment Insurance
Unemployment insurance was a critical part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, a lifesaver during a period defined by economic volatility, depressed wages, and record unemployment. Beginning in 1935 with the Social Security Act, short-term relief was provided for the unemployed to provide for their basic subsistence and maintain their purchasing power. Unemployment insurance generally lasts up to 26 weeks, although in the wake of the Great Recession the Obama Administation extended benefits to 99 weeks.
Cry Wolf Quotes
This bill will cause further migration from the farm areas to the industrial areas and will invite the transfer of workers from the class of those not gainfully employed in order to share in the unemployment benefits…Unemployment insurance, which in many instances places a premium on indolence, would unquestionably defeat this proposed plan of the administration to place workers in the areas of lower living costs and keep them gainfully employed.
Employers pay men, not machines. Can there be any question but that this and similar legislation will drive industry faster and faster toward mechanization? Can there be any question but that its normal tendency will be to depress wages, since the higher the total pay roll, the greater the taxes? Can there be any question but that it will retard reemployment of men and intensify the development of machinery and its substitution for men?
Industrial corporations represent the principal source of livelihood of a very large percentage of our total population. Accordingly, any legislative program which impose unreasonable hardships on manufacturing industries will react to the detriment, directly or indirectly, of every taxpayer.
The proposed pay-roll tax is not only a sales tax, but, in addition, is a production tax, a processing tax, and a distribution tax. It has all the vices and none of the virtues of a sales tax. It is selective as to the classes of business against which it is to be assessed, and hence, is discriminatory. It is cumulative; it applies over and over again on every operation from the production of raw materials to and including the final sale of a product to the ultimate consumer…The pay-roll tax is a hidden tax and each successive purchaser of a commodity pays the tax if it can be passed on under the circumstances of the particular transaction.
Evidence
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San Francisco Fed Finds Unemployment Insurance Doesn't Significantly Contribute to Unemployment Levels
Unemployment insurance doesn't encourage people to stay jobless.
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Moody’s Analytics Advocates Unemployment Insurance as Stimulus
For every $1 spent on unemployment benefits, GDP increases by $1.61.
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Congressional Budget Office Says Unemployment Benefits Have Strongest Stimulative Effect
Unemployment benefits make macroeconomic sense during a recession.
Backgrounders & Briefs
Unemployment Policy Brief: Shermer
By Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, PhD, February 2010
Unemployment insurance benefits – including their length, eligibility, and expense – are again in the spotlight. The arguments are hardly new.
