Freedom Line Blog

The debate over unemployment benefits isn’t an easy one. While the left completely ignores the rudimentary economics (and the empirical evidence) showing that prolonged benefits tend to keep unemployment artificially high, the fact remains that many workers use the system in good faith, relying on it as a bridge during uncertain times. We can all probably agree, however, that this doesn’t make any sense. From MarketWatch’s report on rising unemployment claims:

Weekly jobless claims jumped by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 380,000 in the week ended April 7, the highest level since late January, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

Much of the increase was related to spring break, when many school bus drivers and cafeteria workers are allowed to file for temporary unemployment benefits.

Hey, if this is the direction we’re going, why not allow them to file for unemployment over the weekend? Or perhaps for those oppressive hours of 5 PM-9 AM every weekday when they’re not gainfully employed?

This is an offense both to people who really require unemployment benefits and to the taxpayers who are underwriting school workers’ spring breaks. And with MarketWatch attributing”much of the increase” to these workers, are we to understand that it’s become common practice for school workers to exploit this outrageous provision?

Some aspects of the unemployment debate are difficult trade-offs between economics and empathy. This one, however, is a no-brainer.