Blame Congress for unemployment: Column

Duncan Black | USATODAY

I have a crazy idea. Why don't we help some people who truly need help?

Specifically, the long term unemployed. These are people who are looking for jobs in an economy which has had a 7%+ unemployment rate for 5 years. These are people who are applying for jobs even though it has been well documented that many employers simply will not hire people who have had long spells of unemployment. These are people whose futures are grim.

These are people who need help.

Absent action by Congress, 1.3 million people are soon going to lose their unemployment benefits as the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program, which provides federal funding for the long term employed, is about to expire. People who have been subsisting on meager benefits are about to see those meager benefits disappear. It will affect them personally, and it will affect the economy generally.

If I were in charge of things, I'd actually pursue more extreme policies. I would have the Federal Reserve Bank send free money to people. I would enact a Works Progress Administration style program to engage in mass hiring of the unemployed.

Hopefully these people could be employed to do some truly useful things, but in a time of high unemployment and low inflation, even paying people to do relatively useless things would benefit the economy. It would certainly benefit the people who are unable to find jobs. I would also support massive spending on a "fix it first" infrastructure program, repairing bridges and water systems and roads that have been neglected.

But those are my fantasy plans. I'm not actually in charge of things, so it's necessary to consider more politically realistic ways to address the current economic crisis. The very least we can do is to continue to support people who, mostly due to no fault of their own, are unable to find jobs at the moment. Extending unemployment insurance benefits to the long term unemployed has been done before, and members of Congress should vote to do it again.

The Great Recession didn't have to be this bad. More fiscal stimulus would have improved things. More aggressive action by the Federal Reserve would have improved things. Better handling of various programs by the executive branch, related to helping people impacted by the foreclosure crisis and curbing associated bad practices by banks and mortgage servicers, would have improved things.

The people who are actually in charge, the stewards of the economy, failed us. The long term unemployed aren't unemployed because they are bad workers or because they have made bad choices. They are unemployed because the era of high unemployment has gone on far longer than it should have because the policy response was inadequate. The unemployed did not cause the bad economy. They are victims of it.

Even the relative good job growth of recent months isn't nearly enough to return the economy to full employment within any reasonable time-frame. We have had, at best, normal job growth, but never the level of job growth which is associated with a rebounding economy. As long as the unemployment rate remains high, it is absurd to blame the jobless for their plight. They are not to blame; policymakers are.

Five years later austerity is still all the rage, despite the continued economic suffering of so many. I'd advocate doing much more to alleviate our current economic woes, but the least we can do is to provide a lifeline for the people who need it. Members of Congress should support the continuation of benefits for the long term unemployed. Without it, they will suffer and so will the economy generally.

Duncan Black writes the blog Eschatonunder the pseudonym of Atrios and is a fellow at Media Matters for America.

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