http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/12/1329302/-Republicans-Caught-in-A-Colossal-Lie-About-Unemployment-Benefits
Not that they'll ever read it, but a study released by the Federal Reserve Division of Research and Statistics, Monetary Affairs blows a huge hole in one of the GOP's most enduring fictions about providing jobless Americans with unemployment benefits.
You know the one about how providing extensions just serves to make the unemployed lazy. How it encourages them not to look for a job. and actually fosters unemployment. So cutting off their benefits will make them "get off their butts" and go find work, because they'll have no other choice. This is one of the GOP's greatest hits because it feeds into the (often race-based) biases of their constituents and justifies doing absolutely nothing to help those Americans. And nothing is what the GOP does best.
But a new study by Regis Barnichon of the Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional in Barcelona and Andrew Figura of the Federal Reserve Board reveals that provision of long term unemployment benefits has no significant impact on whether a person continues to pursue employment:
Extending benefits to unemployed workers beyond the 26 weeks provided by most states has little effect on the unemployment rate and essentially no impact on labor force participation, a recent working paper released by the Federal Reserve Board found.
That information, while interesting, would have been a whole lot more relevant had it been uncovered nine months earlier.From the study:
During the 2008-2009 recession, U.S. unemployment insurance (UI) benefits were extended to unprecedented levels, with UI duration increasing from 26 weeks—the regular duration—to as much as 99 weeks in some states, prompting a lively debate in policy and academic circles about the adverse effects of such extensions on the search behavior of job seekers and thus on the unemployment and labor force participation rates.
The Fed refers to these extensions of benefits as Emergency and Extended Unemployment Benefits, or "EEB." It found that providing extended benefits to the unemployed did not "cause unemployment," which is the crux of the GOP's mythology
[B]ecause EEB has very little effect on the behavior of the relatively large share of individuals who are at the beginning of their unemployment spells, the overall effect of EEB on the unemployment rate is fairly modest; at its peak (in terms of the average number of benefit weeks provided) EEB boosted the unemployment rate by one-third percentage point."
Further, they determined that "the effect of EEB on the [labor] participation rate is estimated to have been quite small."
I would like those on the republican bench to note those of you that were jobless because of the republican crash and not extended because of the republican blocking to notice what they did was even more egregious to you because you supported your own demise. everything they did to us they did to you but you cheered and voted for them again and again, they promised you jobs 2010 you gave them a landslide victory and yet 4 years later many of you are jobless while they tout the Keystone pollution job act. they claimed millions of jobs the only thing with millions was what they would pocket.
there is also a link to many reputable predictions of what republicans denied Americans jobs are you getting mad? and today 9/13/14 less than 2month from midterms they are still blocking it, who are you thinking about voting for?
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/07/812251/republicans-blocked-jobs-act-one-year/
http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2011/09/CU_KeystoneXL_090711_FIN2.pdf
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/07/alberta-oil-sands-have-been-leaking-six-weeks-and-no-one-knows-how-stop-it
