The unemployment benefits program in the US has Å“major adverse effects” and kills Americansâ„¢ Å“incentive” to go out and look for a job, says James Bovard, policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation
Å“There are a number of major adverse effects from perpetuating these unemployment benefits, especially for folks who might otherwise simply go out a get a job,” said Bovard in a phone interview with Press TV on Thursday.
Å“It might not be the perfect job for them but what often happens with the extension of the unemployment benefits is that people wait and wait and wait to try to find the perfect job but the perfect job probably does not exist.”
Bovard said the high rate of unemployment in some of the older cities in the US stems from Å“a profusion of government benefit programs which have basically undermined the incentive to work.”
Å“Households might be getting food stamps and medical subsidies and housing subsidies and two or three other benefits and it has ruined the incentive for many folks to go and get a job that might only pay 10 or 12 or 13 dollars an hour.”
Bovard also said that he believes this is a program that has not worked out well for many of the Å“recipients or the American economy.”
I know people who have been on unemployment benefits for almost two years, he said. Å“Some of them have simply gotten out of the habit of working and they have gotten out of touch with the job force.”
Many of these households getting these benefits are headed by people who Å“donâ„¢t have a lot of skills but they have a lot of benefits,” he said.
And thatâ„¢s Å“part of the reason that the US unemployment rate has stayed higher than what otherwise would have been.”
On Saturday, 1.3 million Americans lost their unemployment benefits after Congress failed to extend an emergency federal program under which jobless American workers received unemployment insurance payments.
Before December 28, 38 percent of unemployed Americans received unemployment insurance through their state or federal government. But now, as the program has expired, only a quarter of jobless Americans will receive the benefits, the lowest rate in over half a century.
AN/ISH
Source: Press TV