August 23, 2013
Wonkblog had an interesting piece noting the fact that the number of people collecting unemployment benefits is falling faster than the number of new unemployment insurance claims. It attributed this fact to the growing number of unemployed workers who have exhausted their benefits. The reduction in the duration of benefits has also increased this number.
There is a third reason that the percentage of unemployed workers collecting benefits may decline. Many workers who lose their jobs now will have had little work experience in the last two years, which means that they may not qualify for benefits. In other words, if a worker had been laid off in 2008 or 2009, when the economy was losing 700,000 jobs a month, and since then has only been able to find intermittent and part-time work, they likely will not meet even the work requirements to collect benefits. Relatively few laid off workers would have been in this situation at the start of the recession, but it is likely that many workers are now.
(Note: Typos corrected.)
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