An Epidemic of Laziness, Part II
The San Fran Fed has a new research piece out debunking the notion that Americans choose to sit around collecting unemployment insurance rather than finding gainful employment (per Senator Jon Kyl and others). (See previous — heavily commented — BP post on this subject here.)
Extended Unemployment and UI Benefits
By Rob Valletta and Katherine Kuang
During the current labor market downturn, unemployment duration has reached levels well above its previous highs. Analysis of unemployment data suggests that extended unemployment insurance benefits have not been important factors in the increase in the duration of unemployment or in the elevated unemployment rate.
The Journal has a story posted on the paper here.
Of course, I don’t expect that actual facts (remember those?) will change many minds, but thought this study was post-worthy in light of the recent controversy.
As you were.
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April 20th, 2010 at 10:45 am
So, .4% of the 6% increase works out to nearly 7% which sounds about right, if not light. (They have an agenda, imo, so they are being conservative).
The study also didn’t address the unemployment that we had prior to the 6% increase—those types of folks who come and go in the workforce are more likely to be gaming the system, imo—-we can’t determine that from this study.
So, at best…7% of the newbies are gaming. And I suspect it’s much higher.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:46 am
for those dilligently hearing and reading whats going on while waiting for the phone to ring with whatever … I get the last word on the Erin & Mark debate concluded just now on CNBC concerning this subject … yea Erin take the 1st job that comes along to get off UNEMP – sure throw away what you worked all your life for by taking a huge drop in income – just to be in the working #s column
April 20th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Let me ask you this one. If you are 63 1/2 and you can leave your job involuantarily (i.e. get fired, without wanting to work anymore) and go on unemployment for the next 18 months – jump on Obama’s new health care plan and pick up an unemployment check – in Illinois they pay out up to $500 a week (and they wonder why the State is basically bankrupt), why wouldn’t you do it? You jump up to fully paid social security benefits at 65 and are medicare eligible (may not matter since everyone will get access).
Do you know how many folks are going to do this? Lot’s and lot’s of them…..
Also, there are tons of union workers here in the midwest who were all working the lines at Ford, Chrysler, etc. making $80,000 a year living in $500,000+ houses and sending all their frigin kids to private schools at $5,000 per year who don’t want to accept that life, as they knew it, is OVER. They still haven’t pulled their kids out of private school and they won’t be taking a job until they run out of money. Continuing to give them unemployment benefits is just throwing money down a sink hole.
Sure they would rather be working, but only if they can still make their $60 – $80k. Otherwise, they sit and drink beer all day.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:56 am
It is unreal that people still believe the non-sense that people who are unemployed are there just because of unemployment benefits. MAAYYYBE, I would have understood this sentiment in a great economy, but in an economy like ours, where I am sure almost everyone has either been unemployed or known someone who was unemployed these last 2-3 years, it is truly astounding, and a testament to blind ideological belief, that so many people still hold on to this notion.
I say with no regrets, that all of those people deserve to be laid off and see how it feels.
But why do studies and think, YELL and believe in crazy idealogies. Socialism! Communism! Death panels! Woot!
April 20th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Facts? What’s that?
April 20th, 2010 at 10:59 am
@Cdale: “Otherwise, the sit and drink beer all day.”
You made my point. Do you have an empirical data to back up these claims?
April 20th, 2010 at 11:00 am
No Cdale_dog. They are not doing that. It’s a nice little moral story you wrote there, but it’s not based on actual facts. I doubt that it’s even based on anecdotes.
Speaking of anecdotes, I know plenty of people who are on Social Security and are in their early 70s who still work part time. (Or at least they did work before the economy went down). But why would they do this?? In your world of homo economicus (meaning a person who makes perfectly rational decisions all the time), no one should ever do this. They can just sit there on their asses and drink beer all day. And yet, they don’t.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:01 am
I would argue that we have an “epidemic of lazy THINKING”. Not necessarily “laziness”.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Thank you Machiavelli999: Good grief. It’s a nice story to play on one’s emotions and thus satisfy those emotions, but nothing more. Good, clean tea-bagging fun though.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:48 am
I have found in 55 years that accusers essentially judge other’s by their own morals. (Beware Senator Kyl).
So, if THEY would do it, they assume other’s do it. It’s kind of a scummy ‘pot calling the kettle black’ way of reverse thinking. Their “evidence” is their own pathetic motivation.
Just for laughs…can anyone here get by on $500 a week, $2000 a month? That’s laughable in and of itself.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:48 am
People will go back to work when, (here’s the important point) in their minds, the cost of doing so is exceeded by its benefits. Simple as that. You can paint it as a morality tale, but really, that’s just trying to say that your evaluation of the unemployed individual’s cost/benefit relationship for going back to work is better than theirs (i.e., the unemployed person’s). But it isn’t and it isn’t even relevant, unless and until you also become unemployed, and then your evaluation of the cost/benefit relationship is valid, but only for you.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:51 am
What are we really saying here? I mean, the comments about workers who are used to making 70K per year and living in 500k homes and their kids living the life of luxury are spot on. Not arguing that. But are we telling them, and ourselves, that the days of a good salary and a good job are over? I don’t think most of America was overpaid, but the folks at the top sure as hell are. And they ain’t takin’ a damn paycut. Why should Joe Schmoe working the assembly line? Costs are going to go up, such as tuition and taxes, yet we are asking him and his family to get used to “living with less”? Why should they?
I am not a person that lives above his means, with the exception of my fondness of racing bicycles, which is starting to price me out. :D I don’t suggest others live above their means. But I’m not going to tell someone that they are worth less now that the recession is over or in progress or whatever. Why should they work for less?
Never mind. I know the answer. Because someone else will work for less.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Come on Barry. Cut out the “facts” bull shit. [EDITOR: The post is by Invictus, not BR]
The study was conducted when jobs were being destroyed at a massive rate. A group of monkeys could have concluded that extended benefits would have little impact on unemployment during this period of time. Given these circumstances, I think the study’s conclusion that without unemployment benefits, unemployment would have been 9.6% rather than 10.0% in January is a somewhat significant “fact”.
Lets hope the Federal Reserve follows up with a study to determine to what extent extended benefits has an impact once job creation returns (as it is currently). Unless human behavior has been altered by forces unknown, some individuals whose circumstances and values warrant will be slackers and will take advantage of extended benefits rather than looking for work. How material a percentage and the extent to which it impedes economic growth on the upside of economic recovery would be valuable information for the future.
All of that said, I personally believe the extension of unemployment benefits continues to be warranted due to current economic circumstances. There simply remains too much risk that a permanent economic recovery has yet to ignite. There are no indications as yet that I am aware of wage pressures or a lack of labor supply in any sector of the economy that has been caused by extended benefits.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Exactly ash. I’ll take a pay cut when they do too. If anyone should dig their heels in after taking it on the chin over the last few decades time and time again, it’s the working class.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Cdale_dog
Did ya even read the link or the post? Old prejudices die hard. What about the rest of the folks who aren’t 63 1/2? The bulk of Obama’s health care plan won’t be implemented until 2014.
Any links to support any of your arguments? I bet a whole lot of auto workers would have loved to be living in $500k homes, sending their kids to private schools on a gross salary of $80k. After taxes that would be about $55k or $1.2k a week. Their mortgage alone would be $2200k a month, not including taxes, and insurance.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
And let’s see, two children at $5k a piece for private school equals 10k a year for what, 12 years? Not including college?
So their mortgage is $26k a year, taxes $5k, insurance is $1.5k and tuition is $10k. That’s $42.5k a year out of their $55k take home pay.
Your arguments are bogus.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
All of the money is locked up in debt, or at the top, or in debt at the top. We’re seeing the results of trickle down. Massive unemployment. Massive compensation disparity. Millions of citizens don’t do anything we need done.
We need jobs in lieu of unemployment checks. Even if it’s make-work, there should be (“should be,” meaning in a robust sustainable economy of any kind) jobs that pay a living wage (A living wage, as used here, being food, clothing, shelter, minimal energy inputs, medicine (if and when needed), and some hope for the security of those things when you get old and frail. Notice that this list does not include movies, popcorn, vacations, spinning rims, children, motor vehicles, computers, or telecommunications).
That even one person should not find a job that meets these minimal standards is unacceptable (for many reasons, including national security and long term stability). That millions out of work are branded as being universally lazy is political scapegoating.
Unemployment is a manifestation of the weakness of our economy, and nothing more. If we’re smart, we’ll start looking for ways to keep everybody busy, or we’ll pay a much larger price when the unwillingly unemployed get a burr up their collective ass, and move, en mass, towards taking what they need in the absence of any possibility of earning it.
Some of y’all need to go talk to some old folks who lived through this shit in the past, or at least read or watch The Grapes of Wrath, before you start trying to run the Okies out of town. You might not be here if someone hadn’t given your grand pappy a job. “doing nothing” in the ’30s.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Even if we presumed that there are people who decide to not take a job (and live on benefits instead) that does not influence the unemployment rate. The jobs those individuals could have taken will be gobbled up by others desperate to have the job (and the associated income). Until you can show me that there are large numbers of unfilled position, with qualified applicants cashing in benefit checks rather than applying for them, you cannot claim that extending benefits create larger unemployment. I think extended benefits leads to less discontent amongst the unemployed. Some for whom the lack of work is less of a burden may choose to stay unemployed longer and leave the few job openings to be filled by those who are desperate to get back to a paying job. And that is a GOOD thing for social stability and crime rates.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
“All of the money is locked up in debt, or at the top, or in debt at the top. We’re seeing the results of trickle down. Massive unemployment. Massive compensation disparity. Millions of citizens don’t do anything we need done.”
Yep.
Seriously, we’re supposed to believe this recession is driven by sneaky cheaty 63 1/2 year olds who CHOSE to get fired and now are choosing to not take another job? Because, what, everyone is desperate to hire an old man?
We’ve had 30 years of policies that favor the rich and wealthy over the working. So I guess I’d like to ask everybody: How’s that trickle-down workin’ out for ya?
This is way better than the hellacious economy of the 1950′s and the New Deal, isn’t it? You know, when we all suffered under the tyranny of 90% marginal tax rates on the rich, and middle class families were SO strapped they could afford a house, decent schools, insurance, food, and a retirement on only one salary?
April 20th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
@Marcus,
I was disheartened when I made a call to the manufacturers of my hot water heater yesterday. American Water Heater Company located in America’s heartland, Johnson, Tennessee.
The toll free assistance line was answered by an Indian woman who spoke barely intelligible English, but her name was “Sandy”. She was capable, but I was angered that in times of high unemployment even hot water manufacturers are out sourcing their help lines.
“American” my ass. Now I wonder where their heaters are made.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Now the idea that en engineer should take a job as a clerk in a supermarket just to get off the unemployment role is absurd, and would be damaging to our economy. He would take away that job from a person who do not have the skills to work as an engineer. So instead of a high-skill person collecting benefits and waiting to get employed when the economy improves, you would have a low-skill person collecting benefits – what good does that do for society? The low skill unemployed is considerably more likely to end up in crime – what good does that do for society? The engineer will not have time to network and keep his skills up so he is much less likely to get back into the high-skills job he was trained to do – what good does that do for society? Only a brain-dead bimbo like Erin would suggest such a foolish thing.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
@dss
“Sandy” probably has a college degree and is eager to work for minimum wage or something close to it, whatever that happens to be in rupees. Try to get anybody in this country, let alone with half a brain, to work for minimum wage.
The US mindset is one of “expectations” and the times, they are a changing.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
When prices come down on food, education, health care, and other necessities, I’ll work for less. I’m sure others feel the same.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Kort – Sandy does not work for minimum wage – she’s a fairly high paid skilled worker in her own country.
Are you suggesting that a comparable job in the US should pay less than 2 dollars an hour? Sound like me that you are advocating that in order to solve this problem, greedy Americans need to do a better job being happy with ever decreasing pay. The only way to compete and to get jobs back in this country is to lower wages? Really?
April 20th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Kort, this will all work out once rents and house prices adjust to minimum wage incomes.
The government is fighting that adjustment, so it will take a while.
But it can’t be stopped in the long run.
If they manage to ram “Amnesty” into law though, that will accelerate the process.
Detroit is the template for America’s cities!
April 20th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Is there any research to show if using cattle prods on the lazy, shiftless unemployed will motivate them to get out and work their life away for less than the cost of living?
April 20th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Well stated DeDude, you are spot on. Unfortunately there are many (the most vocal) that don’t understand how damaging the dumbing down of society will be for everyone. I know of one talented architect that is now delivering pizzas to make ends meet. He went from one of those that does pay taxes to one of the 47% that don’t. Obviously he must be a slacker (for the literal minded of you, this is known as sarcasm). How does that benefit society? Misery enjoys company.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
We need a tax on outsourcing. Lets say $325/week for every call center employee in a foreign country. Then the traitorous bastards that created the high employment could pay for the cost of benefits to the people they put out of work.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
@Kort
Why blame the workers? Blame the corporations that decided to outsource American jobs. This “blame the American worker” crap is simply right wing talking points. Put the blame where it belongs, on greedy, unpatriotic American corporations who don’t want to hire Americans because they prefer to pay $2.00 an hour with no benefits. Yes! That’s the American way!
The unemployment rate in Johnson, Tennessee is 16%. I wonder how many were former employees of American Water Heater?
On their website they show a blond woman as a customer service rep. They are owned by A O Smith which has $2.3B in annual revenues.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
I am sorry, but WHERE are the FACTS in this article. This just seems like a whole lot of “opinions” to me:
Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) was widely quoted this spring as saying unemployment insurance creates a “disincentive” to find new work.
That’s essentially wrong, economists Rob Valletta and Katherine Kuang write. They say the record high duration of unemployment has a “quite small” relationship with the maximum amount of time one can draw unemployment benefits. “Extended [unemployment insurance] benefits have had a relatively modest effect” on the jobless rate. “We calculate that, in the absence of extended benefits, the unemployment rate would have been about 0.4 percentage point lower at the end of 2009, or about 9.6% rather than 10.0%.”
April 20th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
“The unemployment rate in Johnson, Tennessee is 16%”
That is what all this free market – free trade cr@p has done for Johnson TN, what has it done for you lately?
April 20th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Dedude – It has gotten me lead and arsenic filled Walmart toys for CHEAP – that’s what!
April 20th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
“That is what all this free market – free trade cr@p has done for Johnson TN, what has it done for you lately?”
Well, it allowed me to begin subsidizing my neighbor’s underwater mortgage, that was originally funded with cheap dollars funneled back to us from the Chinese, who got those dollars by taking away our jobs and selling us crap from their factories. Now I pay taxes to keep my neighbor’s underwater mortgage from forcing him to walk away. Globalization rocks!
April 20th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
1) Where can you live decently on just unemployment besides some rural areas? Try living on that in NYC.
2) Marcus gets it right. We should create a new Works Progress Administration; anyone who wants a job can get one at the federally determined minimum living wage (we would need to revamp how this works so that the federal government indexes it to state costs, rather than allowing states to set it – so states cannot wiggle out of it), with full health coverage (though we should really have a single payer system in the first place, so we wouldn’t even need to *talk* about that separately.), and no pensions.
No one would be getting rich off of this, but they’d be able to live in an apartment (one bedroom or studio, likely government supplied so costs can be controlled), eat (an individually determined minimum calorie/nutrient diet), travel to work using public transportation, have electricity, and have clean running water. This would require an urban environment, but everyone should be living in a city anyway (services easier to provide, more space efficient, more energy efficient [see Walkable Cities, New Urbanism]), and our policies should reflect that – we should be building more cities where needed and should encourage more people to move to them.
They also would not be allowed to enter the program if they have children, and they would be removed from it if they decide to have any. Programs like this would be for those that do not create extra expenses for themselves.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
What we are trying to accomplish with all of our opinions is some balance between corporate growth and profit, and gainfully employed members of American society, who contribute back into the food chain with the dollars they make, and are taxed, double taxed on, and spent on things they need.
It’s an ideal world we strive to achieve, but we never will. But these policies, especially since NAFTA, have continued to erode the status of the United States, rather than build us up. Yeah, we got lots of Chinese junk to buy, but equilibrium is gonna catch up sometime, and those slaves in China are going to want to be paid more. Who are the corporations going to imprison then? Move on to Africa? Instead, this time, leave them there instead of bringing them here. That sounds about right.
I can’t wait for property bubbles in Kenya. I’ll be so excited to hear about equity markets soaring in the Ivory Coast. Or what about demand for Ipads in Lesotho? And through this and then that, Americans will continue to lose jobs, while corporate profits will keep up their status quo “outperform”.
April 20th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Barry, My apologies.
Now Invictus, cut out the “facts” bullsh……
April 20th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
“No one would be getting rich off of this, but they’d be able to live in an apartment (one bedroom or studio, likely government supplied so costs can be controlled), eat (an individually determined minimum calorie/nutrient diet), travel to work using public transportation, have electricity, and have clean running water. This would require an urban environment, but everyone should be living in a city anyway (services easier to provide, more space efficient, more energy efficient [see Walkable Cities, New Urbanism]), and our policies should reflect that – we should be building more cities where needed and should encourage more people to move to them.
They also would not be allowed to enter the program if they have children, and they would be removed from it if they decide to have any. Programs like this would be for those that do not create extra expenses for themselves.”
Plato couldn’t have devised a better Utopia. Human beings really are best managed as herds of sheep.
April 20th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
dss, my ass it isn’t happening. It damn well is. I know about 4 – 5 family’s myself who are making less than $100k and living in half-million dollar homes. They are absolutely still sending their kids to private (Catholic) schools here in the midwest when perfectly fine public schools are FREE. I don’t feel sorry for them for a minute. I even spoke with one gentelmen who told me all he did all day long was make sure people on the line had coffee and got their breaks when they were supposed to. He was a union line manager and he made close to six figures with full, I mean full benefits and an out of site pension. All his kids went to private schools their whole lives + he had a vacation house on the lake.
This kind of job is GONE folks!!! It isn’t c0ming back. There are a whole generation of 45 – 55 year olds that have known nothing else. These folks aren’t changing and they won’t be employed again for a long, long time. You may not have this situation on the coasts, but it is very prevelent in the heartland.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Lazy and shotty study.
There is a material difference between those that leave jobs voluntarily and those that leave involuntarily. Those that leave voluntarily don’t have to work, and may be more comfortable without a paycheck. Indeed, few quit their job if they need to make ends meat. Also, their voluntary pool includes those ineligible for UI because they were fired (rather then layed off). Could it maybe be that those fired for incompetence have a hard time finding new work.
These are not reasonable control groups. Apples to oranges. But don’t let facts get in the way of your blind appeal to authority.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
“a whole generation” of people making “close to six figures”
I don’t know what planet your are from, but a check of the average pay for union workers in the auto industry here on planet earth would tell you how it works here. We may have that rare outlier that fits your description, but that really is a rare outlier. And then he would have to live in part off some family wealth because the budget just wouldn’t hold together very long as pointed out by dss. If grammy and pappa is paying for private school, that really is their right and has nothing to do with regular union workers.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
OK, so the actual “fact” (according to the study, which I will agree to believe for the moment) is,
“We calculate that, in the absence of extended benefits, the unemployment rate would have been about 0.4 percentage point lower at the end of 2009, or about 9.6% rather than 10.0%. ”
Invictus, I don’t think this debunks “the notion that Americans choose to sit around collecting unemployment insurance rather than finding gainful employment.” In fact, it suggests that 0.4% — more than 600,000 people — do just that.
I don’t think anyone was claiming that extended UE was a major driver of unemployment in the USA. Here’s what your whipping boy Kyl said (from HuffPo):
“[Unemployment insurance] doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work….I’m sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can’t argue that it’s a job enhancer.”
So it sounds to me like Kyl said something that exactly matches the facts, which is that most of them would like to work, 600,000 Americans did not seek jobs because of extended UE, which sounds like a “disincentive” to me. But you said,
“This position — at its core — essentially labels Americans as lazy ne’er-do-wells who’d just as soon live off society’s largesse than earn a living.” Which nobody actually said. It kind of seems like a straw man you created to make your political enemies look bad.
Of course, I don’t expect that actual facts (remember those?) will change many minds.
CR
April 20th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Personally I have a heck of a lot more problems with the guys on Wall Street hauling in million dollar compensations for destroying our economy, than I would have with union workers hauling in 100K salaries for building something useful like cars.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
The Curmudgeon Says:
“Now I pay taxes to keep my neighbor’s underwater mortgage from forcing him to walk away. Globalization rocks!”
________________
Curmudgeon, ol’ buddy, you pay the same or a lesser amount of taxes now than ever (unless you’ve switched brackets — if so, congrats). That’s why we’ll revisit the downside of all of this mess sooner than later.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
In an economy that produce $14T/year through the efforts of less than 140M full time (equivalent) workers, EVERYBODY with a full time job should be compensated with at least 100K for full time work, if the wealth created was distributed in a fair way.
April 20th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
@MA–but what I mean is that the same taxes, okay, debt obligations for future taxpayers, is now being directed to pay for mortgages that are underwater. The payments/obligations are more or less the same (except for the future). They’re just redirected to different uses. Before it was in keeping the spigots open on the Middle Eastern oil pipelines. Now it’s for over-extended and over-extending putative homeowners. Either case, globalization still rocks!
April 20th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I can accept that some people higher up than me, with much more knowledge and experience, are going to be better compensated. I mean, that’s just a part of human society. And yes, even some of them will be paid grossly more. I really don’t have a problem with that. It drives me to want to be like them.
What I have a problem with is those in that situation trying to game the whole thing to ensure they keep taking more and more, and everyone else gets less and less. Enter corporations and their shareholders. It’s all about making more, more, more, and no repercussions as to how it’s done. THAT, friends, is where my hang-up is.
And when I stand before my creator, and He tells me of sins and transgressions (which alone could take a while), then He tells me of the few good things I’ve done, I’d hope He would end it by saying:
My son, at least you never worked for GS.
April 20th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Finally someone has stated the obvious. It’s those $350 a week unemployment insurance checks that are ruining this country. Just ignore the trillions we throw at the banks and the military industrial complex because that’s “good spending”.
April 20th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Gee Honey, the unemployment check just about covers the COBRA payment! We’re rich!
April 20th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Nothing wrong with some differentiation in how different work is compensated, as long as the differentiation is based on how useful the work is for society. Getting incentives right is more than half the way to success for a society. So people making useful things like cars and houses should be very well compensated; people who “work” on robbing others of their hard earned savings and destroying the economy should be compensated with 3 square meals and a domicile fenced in with barbed wire.
April 21st, 2010 at 5:04 am
You can still work at least 20 hours a week and receive at least partial unemployment, pro-rated. Probably quite a number of people are doing that.
April 21st, 2010 at 6:49 am
U.S. unemployment rate now exceeds those of the BRIC and many other countries (to my surprise as I don’t follow these matters closely)
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/World-Economy/Unemployment-Rates.aspx
Which country is it the best to be unemployed in ?
Here in Montreal, cost of living is relatively cheap, you have the option to extend your unemployment benefits if you go back to school, … so much data to compared to other countries, I wouldn’t be surprised if scandinavians countries have impressive unemployment benefits systems.