In a letter to all House members, the bishops said, “When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families.”
They quoted Pope John Paul II, who wrote in his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens that “The obligation to provide unemployment benefits, that is to say, the duty to make suitable grants indispensable for the subsistence of unemployed workers and their families, is a duty springing from the fundamental principle of . . . the right to life and subsistence.”Catholic Bishops To GOP: You Have A ‘Moral Obligation’ To Extend Unemployment Insurance
by Tanya Somanader at Think Progress
The same "right to life and subsistence" argues for employment assurance as well as employment insurance. Only government can undertake an employer of last resort program.
