I thought So Many People Where Looking For Work

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by firstdown

This just shows how much Obama lacks understanding business and the real world.

Democratic lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have introduced similar measures. Obama said recently that discrimination against the unemployed makes "absolutely no sense," especially because many people find themselves out of work through no fault of their own.

Your post lacked a little substance around that, but I see where you are going. He's right, many people lost jobs because an entire company went under, or it suffered so badly in the downturn that it had to cut so deep that they had to lay off even very good employees.

But many does not equate to most. Most (not all) of those laid off from work were laid off by companies looking to trim costs. When making cuts, companies might cut 5 or 10% of the workforce. To decide who stays and who goes, they go through a basic cost benefit type of thinking. "Management has told me to cut $60,000 in salaries. I could cut Frank and Bill who make $30,000 each. Or I could just cut John who makes $60,000."

If Frank and Bill combined are more productive and useful than John, then Frank and Bill stay. If John alone is more useful than Frank and Bill, then he stays.

So usefulness comes into the thought process. The whole point of layoffs is to reduce costs while maintaining as much capability and productivity as possible. So for those chosen as layoff victims, there's often a usefulness problem. That's where the stigma comes from, and rightly so.

Now, AGAIN, this is the case for most but not all. Obama's trying to do right by those good employees laid off by no fault of their own. But in doing so he gives the rest of the unemployed a reason to reject the notion that maybe they were laid off because of relative ineffectiveness. And it will all come along with nuisance lawsuits.