When Unemployment Insurance Was New - 1939
By Gordonskene Saturday Nov 14, 2009 6:00pm
(Sen. James F. Byrnes - From Supreme Court to Secretary of State)
As the unemployment numbers keep creeping up, it's interesting to take a look at a similar situation 70 years ago, when Unemployment Compensation was a new thing (since 1935) and had it's detractors. There really were people who felt it wasn't the governments responsibility to take care of the unemployed - as there no doubt are now. Future Supreme Court Justice and later Secretary of State James F. Byrnes - on February 27, 1939 as Senator from South Carolina, addressed a radio audience to explain just what this unemployment compensation thing was all about.
Sen. Byrnes: “Unemployment assistance by government is not a new question. As early as 1894, ex-President Benjamin Harrison demanded that the federal government set up a work program to fight unemployment. In 1921 at the instance of Mister Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, a conference on unemployment was held in Washington. Bills were introduced in the Congress but nothing was accomplished. Improved business conditions lessen the demand for Federal legislation. But from time to time during the years that followed, bills on the subject were introduced in the Congress. In 1929, our so-called ‘boom year’, the national income was eighty billion dollars. And yet, we had three million unemployed. With that national income today the number of unemployed would be greater than in 1929 because of the technicalogical changes. And the levying of a payroll tax tends to encourage these changes because the tax levied is upon workers and not upon machines.”
Seventy years later, it's still going. And they're still trying to cut the benefits.
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... and what party is primarily for the corporations?
Thank you, Gordonskene
"And they're still trying to cut the benefits."
Well, I guess they're not having too much luck. For decades, it has been 26 weeks (or 30 wks in some states) and half that again, 13-15 weeks federal extension in times of high unemployment. That's what is was during the Reagan recession, which had comparable unemployment statistics. Until Obama became president, unemployment payments that lasted over a year was unheard of. What I'm seeing right now in my state is 26 weeks and a 33 week federal extension. Then, there's something about a 20 week "EB" extension on top of that that expires Dec 24th. But, with or without EB, unemployment has never lasted so long.
So, right now, the length of unemployment benefits is as high as it has ever been.
If it were up to the Repugs and many of the right wing A holes every family depending on unemployment benefits to survive right now would be living in their cars or on the street .If fully half the population got laid off and was unemployed the Repugs and right wing nuts would still be obsessed with the relatively few cheaters and abusers of the system and use them as an excuse and a reason to deny millions of people the help they need .They had no problem at all bailing out their wealthy Wall Street friends ( and themselves ) . F'n savages with out conscience .
The unemployment benefits is a two headed sword. Extending unemployment benefits cause people to be listed longer, raising the unemployment statistics. So, in the upcoming 2010 elections, the Repubs can say that Obama's stimulus plan is a failure, and a failure of leadership that can be only reversed by putting Republicans in charge of the House and Senate. After all, Obama's advisers were saying that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. Keeping people on the unemployment rolls longer raises the statistics.
As far as bailing our Wall Street, that seems to be a bipartisan endeavor. Obama, like Bush before him has put Goldman Sachs in charge of the economy. There is no effort to eliminate the "too big to fail" corporation. There is no criminal prosecution of the rating agencies who rated the mortgage backed securities as "AAA".
There is a false dichotomy, Republican versus Democrat. In financial matters, the dichotomy ought to be between the corporate owned politician and the non-corporate owned politician. The corporate media has been, so far, successful in keeping the dichotomy between Republican and Democrat.
The Dems are the lesser of two evils, but that's all they are.
I wonder if, when passing the original unemployment insurance, if they added plums like this one that they added to the most recent unemployment extension:
So, once again, public good be damned! Another "good" bill, one that most people would see as a net positive, is used as a vehicle to funnel money into the pockets of the same entities that that have had their pockets lined over, and over, and over, and........
To add insult to injury, the $33 billion that will be handed out from this plum is 1/3 of the money needed to fund the latest projections on the proposed "health" plan for one year. It is 1/3 of the money that is just "too expensive" for the government to bear to keep American citizens healthy.
But, of course, I'm sure it was totally worth it to get the Anti-progressives to sign on to unemployment benefits for their unacknowledged constituency - the people in their districts.
This has to end!!!!
I went to see Paul Krugman speak in Manchester, Vermont in October. After speaking for an hour, he started taking questions from the audience. A man a few feet away from me stood up and asked him where the jobs were going to come from for his children and grandchildren.
Paul answered that he didn't know, but green jobs might be an answer. He also said that something might come along that we haven't invented yet, that will revolutionize things similar to computing and the internet. But, in the end, he just didn't know from where the jobs were going to come.
I don't think we can sit around and wait for something to be invented that doesn't exist yet and green jobs could put people to work now. Why, as far as I can see, is nothing being done to create green jobs? What about all of the crumbling infrastructure in this country? Roads, bridges, water pipes that are 100 years old and leaking? We spent billions of dollars to save the casinos on wall street. Can't we spend a few billion to put some people back to work?
I am extremely disappointed that President Obama is not addressing the unemployment problem.
As Paul Krugman said, "We need a better government than we've got."
When I first saw the picture, it looked like he had a Hitler-like moustache.
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