2014’s Employment Boom Almost Entirely Due to the Expiration of Unemployment Benefits

[YankeeFan]

So, should we admit that ending the extended benefits was a good thing:

That’s the finding of a new NBER working paper from three economists — Marcus Hagedorn, Kurt Mitman, and Iourii Manovskii — who contend that the ending of federally extended unemployment benefits across the country at the end of 2013 explains much of the labor-market boom in 2014.

About 60 percent of the job creation in 2014, 1.8 million jobs, they find, can be attributed to the end of the extended-benefits program. That’s a huge amount, and suggests that long-term unemployment benefits, while there’s a good charitable case for them, could have played a big role in the ongoing lassitude of our labor market. (Indeed, an earlier working paper from a few of the same authors argued that extended benefits raised the unemployment rate during the Great Recession by three percentage points; see a summary of that paper here.)

Study: 2014's Employment Boom Almost Entirely Due to the Expiration of Unemployment Benefits Obama Wanted to Renew | National Review Online

 

[LongTimeListener]

Sounds conclusive, direct and especially unbiased.

 

[YankeeFan]

Or, just logical, and expected.

 

[Starman]

$20,000 from Mommy and Daddy comes in handy too.

 

[YankeeFan]

$20,000 from Mommy and Daddy comes in handy too.

Is this a shot at me?

From you? In respect to getting a hand up in your chosen line of work? Really?

That might be the funniest thing ever.

 

[poindexter]

Jesus, the cheap shots that people will take here...

I learned a decade ago, never to venture anything about your personal life here. It will come back and bite you, by very bitter people.

 

[Starman]

Bootstraps!! Self-Reliance!! Initiative!! Hard Work!!

 

[YankeeFan]

Jesus, the cheap shots that people will take here...

I learned a decade ago, never to venture anything about your personal life here. It will come back and bite you, by very bitter people.

It's so funny. It wasn't $20,000.

People act like $10,000 is a million ****ing dollars. If my business had failed, I would have still been able to pay them back -- by, you know, getting a job.

And, I could have liquidated all my savings, or raised the money by other means. I was a good risk.

If you can't raise $10,000 from friends and family to start a business, it's not because you only know poor people, it's because either your business idea sucks, or you suck.

 

[YankeeFan]

Bootstraps!! Self-Reliance!! Initiative!! Hard Work!!

Please Starman, tell us again the story of how you cracked into the newspaper business despite no connections in the business.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Regarding the paper, so they're saying it's the unemployed's fault that the jobs weren't previously created?

Regarding YF, that thread from years ago when he wrote about his business, then revealed his parents loaned him the start-up money for it was one of the funniest threads I've seen on here.

 

[Riptide]

Looks like YF's just a little touchy on that subject.

 

[YankeeFan]

Looks like YF's just a little touchy on that subject.

Not at all.

If you know the facts, it's because I told you them.

But for Starman to question it? That's rich.

 

[Starman]

I was working a day job at an auto parts store and 2-3 nights a week at 7-Eleven. My father, a news editor at a midsize daily, said the paper might have an opening for a sports stringer. It paid a hum-dinging $20 per story/ phone shift and the paper had about a dozen people writing as stringers.
I kept the other two jobs and did the stringing for 15 months, then got a job at a 6-day daily. I never again worked at the same paper as my dad, or even in the same chain.
I made sure never to use any of my parents' friends or coworkers as references, or apply anywhere any of them worked.

But more than that I've never pounded the drums to cut off unemployment insurance for anybody.

 

[Songbird]

It's so funny. It wasn't $20,000.

People act like $10,000 is a million ****ing dollars. If my business had failed, I would have still been able to pay them back -- by, you know, getting a job.

And, I could have liquidated all my savings, or raised the money by other means. I was a good risk.

If you can't raise $10,000 from friends and family to start a business, it's not because you only know poor people, it's because either your business idea sucks, or you suck.

Or it just ain't a Dunkin' Donuts, dammit!

 

[Starman]

When I got out of college I could have 'liquidated my savings' and bought a used moped.

 

[poindexter]

Here come the bootstrap stories...

 

[JackReacher]

Always fun!

 

[User 11148]

Sounds conclusive, direct and especially unbiased.

Actually, it's a pretty nice piece. I hate the headline -- 60% is "almost entirely"? -- but the work being discussed is nice work and is quite substantive.

Also ... Starman and YF? This little snit re: family nudges is beneath both of you. So neither one of you became the towering success you are without a little help. BFD.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

They didn't build that!

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Actually, it's a pretty nice piece. I hate the headline -- 60% is "almost entirely"? -- but the work being discussed is nice work and is quite substantive.

Also ... Starman and YF? This little snit re: family nudges is beneath both of you. So neither one of you became the towering success you are without a little help. BFD.

Yeah, but true bootstrappers don't need any help. They don't even have help making the leather for their boots.