Unemployment

“ Being mindful of the suffering that comes with unemployment, that last figure is a matter of particular pride for me. And as our economy has grown, unemployment has dropped to its lowest level since 1979. ”

“ There is in regard to unemployment but little difficulty in coming to a sound conclusion. Unemployment, and to a less extent under-employment, is on every ground—humanitarian, social, economic—a curse so great that no reasonable effort should be spared to reduce to a minimum the probability of its occurrence, and to mitigate as far as possible its dire effects when once it has supervened. Many will differ as to how far it is right to go in the provision of measures of alleviation, but that is a difference more in degree than in principle. ”

“ Notwithstanding the frequency of cases of this sort, it is, we think, clear that a majority of those who, in any given state of trade, come into distress through long-continued unemployment or chronic "under-employment," are—with many individual exceptions—either the less strong or the less fit, the less skilled or the less capable, the less responsible or the less regular in their industry of the wage-earning community. ”

“ Proposed remedies for "Unemployment."--In discussing methods of dealing with "the unemployed," who represent an "over-supply" of labour at a given time, it is often found convenient to distinguish the temporary "unemployment" due to fluctuations rising from the nature of certain trades, and the permanent unemployment or half employment of large numbers of the least efficient town workers. ”

“ The foregoing analysis of the causes of unemployment shows that they are deep-seated in the nature of modern industry, and that it would be unjust to the workingman to attribute them in any large measure to his incapacity or indisposition to labor. The care of the unemployable must of course be undertaken by society, and such persons prevented as far as possible from depressing the wages of competent labor by their competition. ”

“ I do not propose to deal with such branches of the problem of unemployment as casual labour or seasonal fluctuations. I confine myself to what we all, I suppose, feel to be the really big problem, to unemployment which is not special to particular industries or districts, but which is common to them all, to a general depression of almost every form of business and industrial activity. ”

“ That is the simple idea which is the very heart of the Industrial Recovery Act.
On the basis of this simple principle of everybody doing things together, we are starting out on this nationwide attack on unemployment. It will succeed if our people understand it—in the big industries, in the little shops, in the great cities and in the small villages. ”

“ Economic theories about unemployment are themselves part of the information sets in society. An adequate description of unemployment not only requires a statement of taxes, social security and e.g. legal minimum wage, and their technical interaction, but also a statement of people’s perceptions, of the theories in the journals, and of what journalists and politicians make of these. ”

“ Most economists, still deeply imbued with a belief in the admirable order and economy of "the play of economic forces," appear to regard all unemployment not assignable to individual vice or incapacity as the natural and necessary effect of the process of adjustment by which industrial progress is achieved, ignoring altogether the two latter classes of consideration. ”

“ All this organised attempt to prevent unemployment, which we regard as the primary duty of the National Authority, though we have reason to believe that it can obviate the greater part of the involuntary lack of work from which so many of the wage-earners now suffer, will not, of course, completely secure every individual workman in permanent employment. ”

“ In the long run, the right answer to unemployment is to create more jobs. ”

“ I hear tales of unemployment in the United States of America, but the reports that reach us here on American unemployment are so contradictory that I can build no argument upon them. But, as to the gigantic dimensions of our unemployed problem there can be no doubt. We have 1,400,000 workmen on the unemployed register drawing unemployment pay in one form or another. The annual cost to the nation of feeding its workless population runs to over £100,000,000—almost the figure of the annuity demanded from Germany as a war indemnity. ”

“ The recent discussion of the problem of unemployment, both in Parliament and in the Press, affords a remarkable proof of how difficult it is to enforce attention to new methods of dealing with great social problems, if such proposals are made a little before their time. ”

“ Unemployment The immediate government relief of the unemployed by the extension of all useful public works. All persons employed on such works to be engaged directly by the government under a workday of not more than eight hours and not less than the prevailing union wages. The government also to establish employment bureaus; to lend money to States and municipalities without interest for the purpose of carrying on public works, and to take such other measures within its power as will lessen the widespread misery of the workers caused by the misrule of the capitalist class. ”

“ A scourge of unemployment fell upon the land and labor as such, with no theory of its own about money, knowing only what it meant to be out of work, assailed the befuddled intelligence of the country with that embarrassing question: Why were men helplessly idle in this environment of boundless opportunity? ”

“ It is, of course, necessary for us to guard against two grave dangers. Insurance against unemployment must not, by any chance or loophole, become a mere dole which encourages idleness and defeats its own purpose. ”

“ Then too, there are to be added the numberless frictions of industrial life, all contributing their quota to unemployment, such as the bankruptcy of an employer, changes in management, the arbitrariness of a foreman, &c. There are also what may be termed the political causes of unemployment, which depend on the commercial policy of the nation, in so far as it adopts Free Trade or Protection. ”

“ How can the evil of unemployment be reduced? What abuses might arise in connection with unemployment insurance? Who pays the cost of unemployment now? Argue whether we should or should not place industrial unemployment on the same basis as industrial accidents. ”

“ We proceed now to consider the last section of all, the adult able-bodied man or woman without means, who becomes destitute through not being in employment at wages. We think that it is invidious and unwarranted to assume that such unemployment is, in any particular case, wholly or even mainly the result of any "defect of the citizen character." We have been unable to resist the evidence that unemployment, and even acute distress from unemployment, comes, as a matter of fact, to workmen of excellent skill and character. ”

“ If we are to secure contentment in industry, unquestionably the first matter to be dealt with is unemployment. A distinction must be drawn between normal unemployment—the result of seasonal or cyclic depressions in trade, which arise from circumstances well-known in industry, either affecting the world at large or peculiar to some country in particular, or special to some national industry—and the abnormal unemployment which has resulted from the Great War. ”

“ Yes, we know unemployment is 9.8 percent and the real unemployment is 16 percent, 50 million people don't have any health insurance, median family income has gone down, poverty has gone up, and 25 percent of our kids are on food stamps. ”

“ With respect to unemployment, our program of economic development will precisely produce increased job opportuni­ties. While we believe that we are in some measure taking care of the annual additions to the employable labor force the backlog of unemployment is expected to be absorbed by the accelerated pace of our industries as well as their logical expansion consistent with our resources. ”

“ That condition is the only permanent remedy for unemployment. When all wage earners—all men and women—in this country are trained Homecrofters, able to build a house and furnish it themselves by their own skill and knowing how to get their living from one acre, whenever need be, the Homecroft life will be the universal life of the working people, and there will be no unemployment.
Unemployment will continue so long as there is a great mass of floating labor, [Pg 240] living from day to day on a wage while it lasts, and starving when it stops. ”

“ Thus, it would appear that as fast as the public works drew off the unemployed, so fast would men leave the low-paid, irregular occupations, and by placing themselves in a state of "unemployment" qualify for public service. ”

“ It would be impossible to form a scheme under which each industry would provide against its own unemployment. There are many industries, ranging from those most highly organized with employers and Trade Unions acting, and accustomed to act, collectively and with some experience of the ratio of their unemployment, down to industries which have no organization whatever nor any collective machinery available for the operation of an insurance fund nor any knowledge of their own unemployment. ”

“ Great Britain's experiment in doling out "unemployment pay" was based on expediency, and on the generous hypothesis that men and women, outside of the professional pauper class, would prefer work with wages to wages without work. ”

“ Although to prevent unemployment is impossible, happily a great deal can be done to mitigate the evils of unemployment when it does occur. Under no system of organizing industry—in spite of the contentions of the Labour Party that under its socialistic reconstruction of industry there would be no unemployment—can any person be guaranteed continuous work. ”

“ And, lastly, Labour Exchanges are indispensable to any system of Unemployment Insurance, as indeed to any other type of honourable assistance to the unemployed, since they alone can provide an adequate test of the desire for work and of the reality of unemployment. ”

“ Poor Law Relief—Principles Governing Administration of Relief—Ascertainment of Applicant’s Income—Assistance to Guardians to Carry out Works—Funding of Cost of Relief—Help to Poorer Metropolitan Unions—Assistance to Guardians to Raise Loans.
Unemployment is to-day a burning question; it will always be in industry an outstanding difficulty. ”

“ But what we may call the normal unemployment in modern industry, which amounts to 2-21⁄2 per cent of the labor force, cannot be overcome by direct methods. The remedy for this lies “in a better organization of employers and employes, more steady expansion of trade, and greater stability of industry and of legislation affecting industry. These are not problems directly of unemployment, but rather of taxation, currency, monopoly, immigration, over-production, and technical advances in industry. ”

“ I pass to the problem of unemployment relief.
The Scale of Relief
The fundamental difficulty of the problem of relieving unemployment is a very old one. It turns upon what used to be called, ninety years ago, “the principle of less eligibility,” the principle that the position of the man who is unemployed and receiving support from the community should be made upon the whole less eligible, less attractive than that of the man who is working and living upon the wages that he earns. That is a principle which has been exposed to much criticism and denunciation in these modern days. ”

“ It has been customary in recent years for Socialist advocates to assure the workmen that unemployment can never exist under any of the types of socialistic organization of industry, but that it is an evil peculiar to what they call the “capitalistic regime,” and that unemployment is merely one of the devices of the employer to break down Trade Union conditions and so lower wages. ”

“ During the last few years periods of unemployment had gradually become more frequent and protracted, and the attempt he had made in the early part of the year to get work elsewhere had only resulted in plunging them into even greater poverty than before. ”

“ Some participants, mostly employers, demonstrated the information society was generating or would generate jobs, whereas other participants, mostly unionists, demonstrated there was a rise in unemployment worldwide. ”

“ And since September 1982, according to the Conference Board, the nationwide help wanted index has almost doubled-a sure sign of economic vitality. Unemployment, as I mentioned, is down to 6.8 percent. When you focus only on those who've been unemployed 27 weeks or longer, the number drops still lower. ”

“ I owe this word mal-employment, in its contrasted use with unemployment, to William Kent, a member of Congress from the city of Chicago. In a recent interview, Mr. Kent gives it as his opinion that the sin of the day is waste—the expenditure of effort for naught or for positive ill. Of course, when we get down to details there is difficulty or even impossibility in deciding whether or not a given man is mal-employed—we may leave out of consideration here all persons engaged in criminal occupations. ”

“ I shall take up here only a few other points about unemployment which orthodox economists do not sufficiently emphasize, in order that there may be no doubt as to the magnitude of this evil and as to the duty upon us to eliminate it if we can. ”

“ The heart of the problem, the cause, one might well say, of unemployment, is that the employment of men regularly or irregularly is at no time an important consideration of those minds which control industry. Social organization has ordered it that these minds shall be interested only in achieving a reasonable profit in the manufacture and the sale of goods. Society has never demanded that industries be run even in part to give men employment. ”

“ Even in such a severe crisis of unemployment as that of 1879-81, when the number of men thrown out of work was probably greater than at any date from 1841 down to the present day, the Central Authority held to its view of what the labour test should be. ”