A Permanent Problem

America's financial crisis may be over, the recession behind us, but we're not out of the woods, and the problem that lies unaddressed before us is a staggering one - long term and persistent unemployment. Many of our countrymen are still out of jobs, and the longer that stays true the more likely it is to become permanent, to the detriment of us all.

This could have been avoided. Economies are hungry, and they feed on cash. When times are good that cash flows from the private sector, which is all well and good until the private sector tanks. Macroeconomics 101 tells us that when the private sector cannot spend the government should, but apparently Republicans were skipping class that day because they have been vehemently opposed to the idea of stimulus since day one, seeing opposition as political opportunity. Now that they've lost the election, they've doubled down on this bad idea as the only way to save face, and as a result, we have a big problem: millions of unemployed Americans.

It's easy to make a moral case for why this is problematic - of course as I've said before the current mob posing as the Republican party is both morally and intellectually bankrupt, so a moral case hardly carries any more weight with them than an intellectual one would. Jobless people have no income and therefore the basic necessities of life may be beyond their reach. Homes, food, and healthcare are expensive after all.

But aside from the moral argument, we can make a very practical financial one for why unemployment is a bad. Unless you think it is acceptable to allow people to live in squalor - they think they are entitled to food! - then you must recognize that it is more economical to invest in people proactively than to spend on them retroactively. If Republicans actually believed this rather than just pretending to, I would be one! So when people lose their jobs and we do nothing to alleviate the problem of long term unemployment we essentially create an ethical and financial burden, especially when we have the knowledge and the ability to help rectify the problem. Furthermore, the problems associated with poverty are cyclical; it is hard to break out of poverty. So we can proactively invest in job-training and infrastructure (and schools, and research and development, etc) now, or we can pay for food stamps and Medicaid and welfare later.

Failing now to address the problem of unemployment and the poverty that will follow it will result in permanent issues that will affect us years down the road, for which we will be paying years down the road. It is the moral and financially responsible thing to do to start fixing these problems now, if it isn't already too late.