DeLay: People are unemployed because they want to be

From the Raw Story courtesy of AlterNet:

"There is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits, keep people from going and finding jobs," he told CNN's Candy Crowley Sunday.

"In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out," he argued.

"People are unemployed because they want to be? " asked Crowley.

"Well, it is the truth. And people in the real world know it," said DeLay.

More here, with video.

What studies? I'd love to read them. I'd love to know who commissioned them, who did the actual research, how big the samples were, which unemployed workers were studied, and when and where these studies were done. Actually, my guess is that these studies don't even exist. It sounds too much like conservative mythology, which assumes that Americans are lazy bastards who only work because they have to, and would greatly prefer a lifestyle of watching TV all day long, eating Cheetos and drinking Pepsi. Ah yes, that's the life for me! Damn those bills and all that shit I have to pay for. I could be living the good life if only I didn't have to work.

Certainly there are a few individuals who would be content as couch-leeches, but, forgive me for parting with conservative wisdom, which has essentially become conventional wisdom, I'm pretty sure that people work in order to give their lives meaning. Like most Americans, I've been unemployed before, and everytime I've been there, it's just awful. In addition to feeling like a big loser, I climb the fucking walls. Sure, I have things I like to do, read, watch television, listen to music, play video games, but that all gets old fast, and ends up seeming utterly pointless when I'm not doing something productive with my life.

Maybe I'm just an exceptional individual who has internalized the old school American work ethic in such a way that I'm better than most other lazy-butt parasitic Americans, but, knowing myself as I do, I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Yeah, it sucks waking up in the morning and dragging myself into the grind. It sucks being at work when I'd rather be elsewhere. But in the long run, that's how it has to be. I'm nothing if I don't work, and most Americans feel exactly the same way, whether they articulate it like I do or not. This business about people only working because they have to, just for the money, is and always has been bullshit, the kind of right-wing mythology used to create popular support for dismantling welfare programs.

Now, questions about pay, benefits, job security, respect and autonomy in the workplace, economic justice, these all comprise an entirely different issue, one that is totally unrelated to whether human beings are lazy by default. There are damned good reasons that only teenagers and people with low or no skills work at Jack-in-the-Box. That is, even though the want ads are full of jobs, even while unemployment continues to hover around ten percent, most of these "opportunities" are suitable only for the desperate. Because, you know, it's damned easy to fuck over people who are desperate.

If there is any truth to DeLay's "studies" showing that people receiving unemployment benefits wait until the last minute to look for work, my assumption is that it is because they have become desperate, and are willing to consider work that will, by its very nature, fuck them over. Maybe we need to be talking about making such work more humane and just, rather than debating the extension of unemployment insurance. Just a thought.

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