The new normal
by digby
These long term unemployed just need to get some entrepreneurial spirit:
The number of long-term jobless Americans missing out on federal unemployment insurance this week topped 2 million.
Benefits ended for 1.3 million workers in December. Each week since then, another 70,000 Americans who would have been eligible have joined them.
In a budget proposal released Tuesday, President Barack Obama called on Congress to restore the benefits as "a starting point in achieving opportunity and mobility," at a cost of $15 billion. The budget outline notes that 35 percent of the unemployed have been out of work six months or longer, a higher rate of long-term jobless than at any other time Congress has dropped extended benefits.
Ok, so there may not be any legitimate jobs out there for the long term unemployed. That doesn't excuse their laziness. There are liquor stores to be knocked over and anonymous Johns to service. No excuse for all this bellyaching.
The article points out that the chances of restoring those benefits has about as much chance as I have of becoming the third Mrs Brad Pitt. We just don't care about high unemployment anymore. It's the new normal.
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