Natwerk Designs

Have new innovations & businesses been squelched thanks to two year extensions of unemployment benefits?

Bright people who might have taken a chance may just decide to stay home, skip the risk taking & watch Oprah if the gov't's gonna send them a fat check every week for doing nothing.

Public Comments

1. I think so. And why risk anything if the congres is poised to up the tax rates on you?
2. I doubt it. You have no basis for that claim do you, is that why you didn't link any factual backup? The checks are hardly fat. Get real.
3. Nobody prefers unemployment to working. It is a fraction of the workers previous income. Lines of people begging in the streets and clustering around homeless shelters has been squelched by unemployment extensions. Businesses don't invest in greater production in the face of flat demand.
4. These benefits would actually encourage people to strike out on their own, as the time until they started making money wouldn't be altered by their getting money. As long as they continued to apply for work, their attempt to launch a business wouldn't change their collecting. In fact, a period of downtime would allow them to put the work into planning a new business which they would never be able to squeeze out when merely broke or working a minimum wage job. How exactly does the desperate fear of losing your house allow you to risk take? Risk takers, those starting a business rarely get paid from that business immediately. No cash coming in from your catering, web design, mouse trap, or whatever business is no different from still being unemployed. All unemployment benefits do is discourage bright people from working for minimum wage at jobs they will leave the minute they find something better. The only start ups hurt by this is are ones that must pay market rates for talent, instead of getting them at bargain prices.
5. While that may certainly be a factor that is not the real culprit. The real reason for the depressed state of commerce is uncertainty. Business can cope with almost anything else but not knowing what the rules will be in a year, two years of six months. Uncertainty promotes fear. Fear inhibits innovation and investment. *