Lessons from Other Countries, and Rethinking (Slightly) Unemployment Insurance as Social Insurance against the Great Recession

Autor/inn/en	Neumark, David; Troske, Kenneth
Titel	Lessons from Other Countries, and Rethinking (Slightly) Unemployment Insurance as Social Insurance against the Great Recession
Quelle	In: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 31 (2012) 1, S.188-191 (4 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0276-8739
DOI	10.1002/pam.20626
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Unemployment; Insurance; Economic Climate; Cost Effectiveness; Grants; Career Academies; Tax Credits; Low Income Groups; Unions + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Arbeitslosigkeit; Wirtschaftslage; Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse; Kosten-Nutzen-Denken; Grant; Finanzielle Beihilfe; Berufsakademie; Steuerermäßigung
Abstract	Caspar, Hartwig, and Moench do little to convince the authors of this paper that they have identified policy prescriptions that might usefully be applied to the United States. Caspar, Hartwig, and Moench suggest that in countries with high shares of temporary contract workers, employment reductions were sharper (because they could be). But does an inability to lay off workers a good labor market policy? Clearly there are costs to such rigidities, and elsewhere in their essay Caspar, Hartwig, and Moench argue for more mobility! Brusentsev and Vroman (2011) study U.S. states that allow for short-time compensation under their unemployment insurance (UI) systems. They find that the usage of short-time UI goes up quickly when the unemployment rate rises, but then subsequently declines, consistent with short-term adjustments taking the form of hours reductions when workers can collect benefits in the face of hours reductions. One general concern the authors of this paper have about many of the conclusions drawn in both essays is the lack of discussion of the costs and benefits of the proposed programs. As they pointed out in their essay, many of the U.S. efforts to create jobs were very costly and appear to have had only a limited impact on job creation. On the other hand, the authors find intriguing the point of Haveman, Heinrich, and Smeeding that UI extensions do next to nothing for new labor market entrants who have experienced difficulty finding jobs for what is now a very extended period. If UI is viewed as social insurance against economic downturns, then in normal recessions the key group that needs help smoothing consumption may be those already employed. In the current prolonged and deep recession, however, the same insurance motivations may well extend to the young as insurance against prolonged periods of difficult labor market entry. If UI is to be used in this way, it might be useful to focus spending more on human capital accumulation (with a stipend) than on UI "per se." Since it can be hard to distinguish between youth genuinely having difficulty finding jobs and those who would take advantage of UI benefits offered to those who had not met the usual prior work requirements for eligibility, requiring participation in schooling or training instead might generate less moral hazard and thus better targeted assistance. Moreover, to the extent that such human capital investment increases future wages, it could have longer-run dividends. That said, there is little evidence that youth training programs provide either short-term or long-term benefits for participants, so focusing such modified UI benefits on schooling, which has unambiguous benefits, likely makes more sense. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10