As a result, Paul says, allowing the unemployed to continue getting benefits in the long-term is “a disservice.”

“When you allow people to be on unemployment insurance for 99 weeks, you’re causing them to become part of this perpetual unemployed group in our economy,” he said on Fox News Sunday. If the unemployed stopped receiving benefits sooner, they would be back to work sooner, he suggested.

Extended benefits expire at the end of the year, meaning job-seekers in most states will only get 26 weeks of unemployment insurance, instead of 43 or more in most. That deadline represents an immediate cutoff for 1.3 million people, according to the National Employment Law Project. Paul's comments came in response to President Obama's call for an extension of those benefits.