RAND PAUL'S JOBLESS FANTASY

[DonViejo]

Rand Paul is totally, shamefully wrong about the long-term unemployed

The Kentucky senator thinks he's helping people by kicking them off unemployment. He couldn't be more wrong

ELIAS ISQUITH

Right-wing libertarian that he is, Rand Paul isn’t much for using the federal government to make the world a slightly less terrible place. It was hardly a surprise, then, to find out the Kentucky senator opposed extending emergency unemployment compensation, preferring instead to let it expire for some 1.3 million in late December, with millions more to come after that. EUC is a federal government program, after all; and worse still, it’s one whose primary beneficiaries are the unemployed, a population with little political influence or social standing. You’d expect, in other words, Rand Paul to leave these people shuddering in the winter cold. It’s what his rigid vision of libertarianism requires.

What was less predictable, however, was Paul’s stated justification for opposing EUC. Rather than talk about “makers” and “takers” and the economy’s winners and losers, Paul attempted to repackage his laissez faire absolutism as a kind of tough love empathy. He pointed to a study that, he claimed, showed those on EUC had a harder time reentering the workforce (an interpretation one of the study’s authors subsequently differed with). He talked about how those advocating for an EUC extension were doing a “disservice” to America’s long-term unemployed workers. He made kicking millions to the curb sound like nothing less than an act of benevolence, bordering on charity. Whether it was a feat of self-delusion or chutzpah, only Paul can really say. (My guess is somewhere in-between.)

But as is so often the case with right-wing libertarianism, Paul’s flimsy moral reasoning simply disintegrates once it comes into contact with the facts on the ground. Implicit in Paul’s formulation is the idea that there are jobs to be had, if only the long-term unemployed would stop relying on government checks and go and have them. Considering that the total number of long-term unemployed set to be sent adrift by the expiration of EUC is somewhere in the vicinity of 5 million, it’s quite likely that, in some instances, this is true. But for the vast, vast majority of those on EUC, the reality is that there simply are not enough jobs to go around. A Bureau of Labor Statistics study found the ratio of job seekers to job openings to be nearly 3-to-1, and that’s the national figure — in many regions, the chances of finding employment are considerably worse.

What’s more, Paul’s understanding of the long-term unemployed also betrays a shameful ignorance as to what life on EUC is actually like. People on EUC aren’t collecting their former paycheck while sitting around and waiting for work to come to them. They’re receiving a mere fraction of their former salary and are under constant pressure to prove that they are indeed searching for new employment. As Kim Merryman, a former water quality technician for an Indian reservation who was laid off in April, told me, “It’s not like [EUC] allows me to live this comfortable, cushy life.” In 2012, the average weekly compensation for those on EUC was $300.

more:
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/04/rand_paul_is_totally_shamefully_wrong_about_the_long_term_unemployed/

[Laelth]

1. k&r for the truth. n/t

-Laelth

[imthevicar]

2. COME ON!

Do you think Aqua Buddha Believes his own Bullshit!? His Owners require this Sacrifice of The Great unwashed Masses. And Dag-gummet he will deliver it.