It’s election season, and the economy is a mess. Sounds like a perfect time for accusations that are light on fact and heavy on folly.
Cue Harvard economist Robert Barro’s recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, which boldly states that had President Barack Obama and his economic team not extended unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, today’s unemployment rate would be just 6.8%, rather than 9.5%. (Although if we’re going to make this a political matter, as Barro has, it’s worth noting that the benefit-extension program passed 98-0 in the Senate). His reasoning: “the program subsidizes unemployment, causing insufficient job-search, job-acceptance and levels of employment.”
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