Neil Wilson — Is Basic Income Basically Finnished?

When is a Basic Income, not a Basic Income? When it’s a Basic Income Experiment.

Modern Money Matters
Is Basic Income Basically Finnished?
Neil Wilson

North Carolina — Proof that cutting unemployment benefits increases employment? No way.

North Carolina has been without long-term unemployment benefits since last Summer, and so they might offer a glimpse of what happens when the unemployment insurance is not extended. 

The answer? A gigantic drop in the unemployment rate....

Of course, this only answers one question, which is what happens to the rate of unemployment.

It doesn't tell us whether people are finding jobs or just totally dropping out of the workforce. But even if this is mostly a function of people dropping out of the labor force, the actual unemployment rate does still matter for Fed policy. So if you think this has any predictive value for the national number (which could be debated) ths number still matters.

Business Insider
Look How The Unemployment Rate Is Plunging In The One State That Already Canceled Long-Term Unemployment Benefits
Joe Weisenthal

From the Charlotte Observer:

North Carolina’s unemployment rate took a sharp turn downward in December, suggesting a dramatic economic turnaround is well underway, but economists warned that the statistics are distorting a more sober reality....

Economists are not so sanguine about North Carolina’s employment statistics for December and for all of 2013....

In reality, however, North Carolina created fewer jobs in 2013 than it did in 2012. Last year’s jobs gain was 64,500, roughly two-thirds of the 89,900 jobs created in 2012.

Just as disconcerting, the state’s labor force shrunk last year, eliminating nearly 111,000 people from the pool of those who are working or looking for work. Such a shrinkage artificially reduces the jobless rate because legions of jobless people don’t show up in the data....

N.C. State University economist Mike Walden said the shrinkage of the labor force is a national problem that suggests discouraged job applicants are giving up finding work.

Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner expects the 2013 jobs gain to be revised to at least 80,000, but he estimated that December’s unemployment rate is probably closer to 8 percent than the official 6.9 percent....

East Carolina University economist James Kleckley said the December jobless rate is the statistical equivalent of an optical illusion.

He said the state has recovered about 75 percent of the jobs it lost in the recession and estimated that North Carolina’s real jobless rate is probably at least 9 percent.

Charlotte Observer

NC jobless rate falls to 6.9%, but job creation lags

John Murawski

Michael McAuliff — Republicans Explain They Filibustered Unemployment Aid On Principle

Republicans filibustered a Democratic bill to restore unemployment benefits to more than one million Americans because they were standing on principle, lawmakers said.

"People, if you pay 'em for years and years, they won't look for a job," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), putting his feelings in perhaps the starkest terms of a number of senators interviewed by HuffPost.

"This creates no job. It's just a check -- you know that," he said.
"That is a huge expenditure. What we need to do is spend that money on retraining these people that are unemployed -- help them for a few months and get them retrained and get them back in the job market," Shelby added. "That's the problem."

"Republicans actually have principles," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who argued that it didn't matter to him that Democrats were likely to use GOP opposition to the extension of benefits as a campaign issue. "I certainly ran because we're mortgaging our children's future. We're bankrupting this nation."

The Huffington Post
Republicans Explain They Filibustered Unemployment Aid On Principle
Michael McAuliff

John T. Harvey — No Brainer: Extend Unemployment Benefits

The current debate over whether or not to extend unemployment benefits is ridiculous. This should be rushing through Congress. Instead, it is yet another bitter fight.

Forbes — Pragmatic Economics
No Brainer: Extend Unemployment Benefits
John T. Harvey | Professor of Economics at Texas Christian University

Robert Costa — House GOP leaders coach rank-and-file on discussing unemployment

Here's the memo.

The Washington Post
House GOP leaders coach rank-and-file on discussing unemployment

Robert Costa

In this view unemployment benefits discourage job creation.

David Edwards — Steve King: Unemployed people are like kids trying to eat without doing chores (via Raw Story

Steve King: Unemployed people are like kids trying to eat without doing chores (via Raw Story )

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told a crowd in South Carolina this week that unemployed people were like children who wanted to eat before they had done their chores. At a closed-door Charleston event put on by conservative activist Mallory Factor, King said…

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