What Kyl Thinks about Unemployment Benefits

PHOENIX (By Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic) March 8, 2010 — On Tuesday, hundreds of people showed up at a soon-to-open Famous Dave's in Gilbert for the chance to score one of 130 jobs as a dishwasher or a server or a cook.

"We expect to interview about 1,000 people," the restaurant manager told a Republic reporter.

It's a shame that Sen. Jon Kyl wasn't there to watch.

Just one day earlier, he was opining on the floor of the United States Senate about a bill to extend unemployment benefits for people in that long line and across the staggering state of Arizona and beyond.

Such benefits, he noted, don't create jobs. "In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."

Kyl said he wasn't suggesting that people collecting unemployment are slackers. No, he just said there's "a disincentive for them to seek new work."

"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it," he told his fellow senators, "but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive and the same thing with the COBRA extension."

I tried to get an interview with Kyl in the wake of his remarks but apparently, he couldn't squeeze me into his busy schedule. Pity. I wouldn't have needed more than five minutes because I only had one question: Really?

Is this really what a senator from Arizona - a state knocked to its knees by the economy - thinks?

The best I could get was his press aide, Ryan Patmintra, who said Kyl was simply refuting the notion that the larger spending bill creates jobs, using unemployment insurance as an example. "He was making the argument that the Senate should be considering legislation that actually creates jobs," Patmintra wrote in an e-mail.

Kyl is, of course, right about the need to create jobs and he did, in the end, vote to extend unemployment benefits for 30 days. But does he really believe that 172,505 Arizonans collecting unemployment have a "disincentive" to work?

Could he really be that out of touch?

I don't know how many unemployed constituents Kyl has talked to, but I've talked to a fair number. They're scared and frustrated and some of them lie awake at night, wondering how they will pay their bills. But I haven't heard even one talk about the windfall headed their way, courtesy of $265 a week in unemployment pay.

And neither have most people who posted this week to my blog on Kyl's comments, though, to be fair, there were people who agreed with him.

"You people crying about your unemployment welfare benefits are a joke," wrote BeckFan. "Stand up and get a freaking job."

"I love the 'hardworking' out of work people who complain on here," wrote ToothDR. "I also love the lack of personal responsibility. I really feel bad for people who lose their jobs. It hurts bad. But life goes on. I just wish we didn't all cry to the government to fix our problems. A little more planning and saving for a rainy day would have helped."

A rainy day, yes. But here in the desert, it's been pouring for a while now.

"A disincentive to seek work - are you kidding me Jon?" wrote imonthevergeof, a Phoenix architect laid off in August. "I am actively looking for work and have been since I was laid off. I will likely have to leave Phoenix to find it. I receive unemployment benefits but they amount to nothing - especially after it is taxed at the end of the year. . . . We now live on our savings, which will be gone by June if I can't find work."

"As of today, my savings are finally gone," wrote Archihuahua. "I was laid off in December 2008. Every day, I look for a job. I frequently do temp work as it comes up, which means I don't collect unemployment those weeks. But I have needed to draw on savings to pay my bills. Not sure what I'll do now that the savings are gone. I am trying hard as ever to find a job."

Apparently, Archihuahua hasn't heard that he can coast for another 30 days, now that unemployment pay has been extended.

Oh yeah, living the dream on $6.63 an hour.

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