Why the Idiocy about Unemployment?

[Joanne98]

My wife, a labor economist, is upset with NPR's "The Take Away" (and many other news programs) for reinforcing the myth that somehow the unemployed are to blame for not having a job. We all should be angry as well because the jobs just aren't there. In fact, the latest unemployment statistics show that there are five unemployed workers available for every vacant job. Why blame workers when it's so clear that Wall Street's reckless gambling caused the jobs crisis?

By now, you'd think we'd have buried this issue. But like Dracula it refuses to die. And so, I return to the subject with the hope of driving a stake through its heart and giving it a proper burial. Among the claims we need to put to rest:

1. Extended unemployment benefits are causing unemployment. Extending benefits for the long-term unemployed will only encourage them to sit at home on their extended derrieres and let vacant jobs go begging.

What jobs? We're down 8 million since the start of the Great Recession. We aren't even creating enough new jobs to keep up with population growth. So what jobs are the unemployed not taking?

Every child knows how to play musical chairs. When you take away 8 million chairs, a lot of people are forced to scrounge around looking for seats that aren't there. Providing nourishment for the chairless is not the cause of the disappearing chairs. It's just the decent thing to do.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/why-the-idiocy-about-unem_b_640585.html

[BlueJazz]

1. One other thing I'd like to point out. >>

If "Jobs are plentiful and employers can't find workers" then the pay for such jobs would be high....which they are not.
Simply the law of supply and demand. I see jobs in the paper that require a lot of skills yet pay "Chickenshit Wages"

[FormerDittoHead]

4. This is my favorite as well, closely followed by how American workers don't have the skills...

That is to say, they can't find Americans WITH the skills who want to work for $7.00 an hour with no benefits...

[Lost4words]

2. our govt would be happy if we just killed ourselves, then

this little inconvenient problem would go away for the Elite. Its Getting in the way of their good times.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

3. Then there's the other canard

An unemployed person can make more collecting UI than by accepting a lower paying job, so there's no "incentive" to find a new job.

If one can make more money on unemployment than by working, isn't the all powerful, all knowing mystical magical "Market" severly undervaluing labor then? Why doesn't the all powerful, all knowing mystical magical "Market" mystically, magically correct that?

ETA: BlueJazz pretty much said the same thing. K n R.

[mrcheerful]

6. Well the same ones who say that also say that a person who is disabled

and on SSDI who gets a check for $690 a month is a free loader living high on the hog off the fat of the land. So what do you expect? Come on these folks say that the unemployed should abandon their homes move to the golden job state where within minutes of arriving they will have a high paying golden job. Though when asked where that state is all you get is a vague answer like any state except the one they live in.

[inna]

5. It's completely deliberate; it's the "traumatized worker" effect...

“One paycheck away from homelessness” is a great formula for labor management.

Surplus supply of labor helps to keep the wages down and maximize profits.

It's a neoliberal dream.