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In an email to supporters yesterday, Newt Gingrich blamed Democrats for high unemployment and argued that “the extension of unemployment benefits has given people a perverse incentive to stay on unemployment rather than accept a job.” Gingrich cynically warns that Democrats are making jobless Americans “get so used to being unproductive that they are willing to accept welfare indefinitely instead of taking a job.” Gingrich is just the latest in a long line of Republicans to attack the unemployed for political gain. In reality, unemployment checks average about $300 per week, and cherry-picked anecdotes about “indefinite welfare” ignore the real source of high unemployment: a severe economic crisis brought about by Republican mismanagement. Gingrich: Companies Aren't Finding Qualified Hires And It's The Democrats' Fault Gingrich Cited Wall Street Journal Article In Arguing American Workers Prefer Unemployment Checks Over Wages. In an email to Human Events subscribers, Gingrich wrote: An article in the Wall Street Journal Monday painted a frustrating picture of the joblessness situation, showing that, despite our high unemployment, many firms are having trouble filling job openings. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, if job openings were getting filled at a normal rate, the unemployment rate would be 6.8% instead of 9.5%. So there are actually many jobs out there that need to be filled. Yet, in the worst recession since the Great Depression, many employers can't make hires. The article cites several reasons for this phenomenon, a few of which are long term trends such as our education system not producing enough qualified engineers. But others factors fall squarely on the backs of this administration and Congress. For instance, the extension of unemployment benefits has given people a perverse incentive to stay on unemployment rather than accept a job. The part-owner of a machine parts company, Mechanical Devices, is looking for as many as 40 new engineers, but is quoted in the article as saying many applicants at job fairs were “just going through the motions so they could collect their unemployment checks.” The article also quotes an engineer who admits he turned down more than a dozen offers because the salary would have been less than he made on welfare. This story encapsulates the problem of the long-term unemployed. The depth and length of this recession is at risk of creating a permanent pool of unemployed Americans, who get so used to being unproductive that they are willing to accept welfare indefinitely instead of taking a job. [Gingrich Email, 8/11/10, emphasis added] Republican Lawmakers Agree With Gingrich: Unemployed Americans Are Lazy And Stubborn Below are just a few of the many examples of Republicans blaming unemployment on laziness brought on by government checks. For a more complete list, see our full fact check HERE( http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201007200002 ) and read more about the GOP's rhetoric on unemployment HERE( http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201007270004 ). Reality Check: There Are About Five Unemployed Workers For Every Job Opening… Depart Of Labor Statistics Show There Are At Least Five Job Seekers For Every Opening. According to the New York Times: In June, there were fewer than five unemployed workers for each job opening, according to new Labor Department data. That is a less discouraging ratio than earlier this year, but the improvement may mainly be a result of workers who have given up looking for a job. The chart below shows the jobless worker/job opening ratio going back to 2000, the earliest year that the Labor Department keeps data on job openings. New York Times: Ratio Of Jobs To Job Seekers Is Probably Higher Because Many Jobless Are Not Counted In The Labor Dept. Statistics. According to the New York Times: “As of June, there were 4.98 workers per opening, compared with 5.09 the previous month. Both the number of job openings and the number of unemployed workers fell from May to June. The number of unemployed workers fell not because more people got jobs, but because hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force. In fact the labor force participation rate – that is, the portion of working-age people who choose to work or actively search for work – is currently at its lowest rate since 1984.” [New York Times, 8/11/10, emphasis added] …And Economists Agree: Unemployment Benefits Have A Tiny Effect On Unemployment Duration Key Researcher On Unemployment Benefits Says His Old Findings On Unemployment Benefits Are Outdated. According to the bipartisan Joint Economic Committee: “While earlier research suggested that the unemployment insurance program in the 1970s and 1980s had important disincentive effects, the current consensus is that these dated studies overstated the effects of unemployment insurance benefits on job search behavior. The older studies noted a jump in the fraction of workers who found a job just before they exhausted their benefits. In contrast, in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, the author of one of the seminal papers in this earlier wave of research, Dr. Lawrence Katz, said that 'the most compelling research shows only modest impacts of UI extensions on the search effort and duration of unemployment of unemployment insurance recipients.' Katz pointed out that these studies overstate the overall impact of unemployment insurance benefits on the length of unemployment spells 'by ignoring the spillover effects of shorter unemployment spells for the other unemployed workers not receiving UI benefits.'” [“Does Unemployment Insurance Inhibit Job Search?” Joint Economic Committee, July 2010, emphasis added] added by: toyotabedzrock