In an earlier post responding to a ?Daily Journal? column on mine on unemployment insurance, Roy complained that I implied the ?reasonableness? of government-imposed unemployment insurance. Let me clarify what I meant.
What I termed reasonable was the idea that workers might have better luck with a job search ? that is, find a better ?fit? in terms of skills and compensation ? if they had some time to look for a job after losing a previous one. Haste makes waste, you might say. But this is merely an arguement for workers having some kind of financial cushion to fall back on in case of a sudden job loss. It is certainly not an argument to the effect that a government monopoly should provide this financial cushion. Far better would be private savings and insurance vehicles, which would for competitive reasons probably come up with the best mix of options that allow for a more leisurely ? but not too leisurely ? job search.
Government officials simply have an incentive to maximize the payment of UI benefits, since they use compulsory taxes to finance them.
