{"id":14303,"date":"2024-07-25T16:54:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T16:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14303"},"modified":"2024-07-25T16:54:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T16:54:59","slug":"what-if-quitting-your-terrible-job-would-help-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14303","title":{"rendered":"What if quitting your terrible job would help the economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“One strange thing about the American unemployment insurance<\/a> (UI) system \u2014 which provides weekly payments to jobless people who meet certain criteria \u2014 is that it\u2019s not insurance against being unemployed. More accurately, it\u2019s insurance against losing a job \u201cthrough no fault of your own,\u201d which makes UI more like \u201cgetting laid off insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from a few exceptions<\/a> in some states for things like escaping domestic violence or hostile workplaces, voluntarily leaving your job disqualifies you from receiving unemployment benefits. Allowing people who quit to receive those payments would be \u201ccontrary to one of the fundamental tenets of the UI program. The idea is that we want to incentivize people to work,\u201d said Doug Holmes, president of Strategic Services on Unemployment & Workers\u2019 Compensation<\/a> (UWC), an association that has represented the interests of businesses in matters of UI reform since 1933.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the point of the American UI system is not to make it easier to quit a job. But a few economists are now beginning to ask: Should it be?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Boosting UI generosity doesn\u2019t affect overall employment rates<\/a> one way or the other. Instead of loafing around in subsidized unemployment, more generous benefits can support people to quit their jobs in search of better ones<\/a>, which benefits workers through higher wages and better job satisfaction, and the economy through enhanced productivity as people find better uses for their skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put simply, more quitting can be good for the economy. If UI made it easier for more workers to quit their jobs, people would still look for work and the economy could be better off overall. The real losers would be lousy jobs, which would struggle to retain workers with a greater cushion to quit and go looking elsewhere.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In theory, working a job and buying that carton of eggs are both voluntary transactions. If you don\u2019t like your job, you\u2019re as free to find another as you are to choose a different, cheaper carton of eggs. In practice, especially for lower-wage workers who face relentless economic pressure and lots of debt<\/a>, adding a job search on top of full-time work just isn\u2019t feasible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, people trapped in jobs aren\u2019t able to send signals to the labor market that their work sucks and leaves them too drained to find something better. Let this kind of labor market evolve over the course of decades or centuries and you can wind up with an economy full of jobs that make too many people miserable<\/a>. Without enough freedom to quit, the core logic aligning labor markets with people\u2019s preferences is flying partially blind.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/356461\/unemployment-benefits-insurance-quitting-capitalism-economy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“One strange thing about the American unemployment insurance (UI) system \u2014 which provides weekly payments to jobless people who meet certain criteria \u2014 is that it\u2019s not insurance against being unemployed. More accurately, it\u2019s insurance against losing a job \u201cthrough no fault of your own,\u201d which makes UI more like \u201cgetting laid off insurance.\u201d
\nAside from a few exceptions in some states for things like escaping domestic violence or hostile workplaces, voluntarily leaving your job disqualifies you from receiving unemployment benefits. Allowing people who quit to receive those payments would be \u201ccontrary to one of the fundamental tenets of the UI program. The idea is that we want to incentivize people to work,\u201d said Doug Holmes, president of Strategic Services on Unemployment & Workers\u2019 Compensation (UWC), an association that has represented the interests of businesses in matters of UI reform since 1933.<\/p>\n

So the point of the American UI system is not to make it easier to quit a job. But a few economists are now beginning to ask: Should it be?”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Boosting UI generosity doesn\u2019t affect overall employment rates one way or the other. Instead of loafing around in subsidized unemployment, more generous benefits can support people to quit their jobs in search of better ones, which benefits workers through higher wages and better job satisfaction, and the economy through enhanced productivity as people find better uses for their skills.<\/p>\n

Put simply, more quitting can be good for the economy. If UI made it easier for more workers to quit their jobs, people would still look for work and the economy could be better off overall. The real losers would be lousy jobs, which would struggle to retain workers with a greater cushion to quit and go looking elsewhere.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“In theory, working a job and buying that carton of eggs are both voluntary transactions. If you don\u2019t like your job, you\u2019re as free to find another as you are to choose a different, cheaper carton of eggs. In practice, especially for lower-wage workers who face relentless economic pressure and lots of debt, adding a job search on top of full-time work just isn\u2019t feasible.<\/p>\n

As a result, people trapped in jobs aren\u2019t able to send signals to the labor market that their work sucks and leaves them too drained to find something better. Let this kind of labor market evolve over the course of decades or centuries and you can wind up with an economy full of jobs that make too many people miserable. Without enough freedom to quit, the core logic aligning labor markets with people\u2019s preferences is flying partially blind.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/356461\/unemployment-benefits-insurance-quitting-capitalism-economy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[217,165,411,635,1793,150],"class_list":["post-14303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-economics","tag-economy","tag-policy","tag-unemployment","tag-unemployment-insurance","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14305,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14303\/revisions\/14305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}