[Imprecate]

It also has negative effects for experienced workers:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a3Es...

Instead of being fired or laid off, employees are put into "Milton" type roles where they are made to feel useless, or intimidated into quitting/committing suicide.

There's a line between workers' rights & social safety nets and making the employment market extremely inefficient. I think it's fair to use public funds to retrain employees who have spent years contributing to society, or even to provide them a temporary income so they don't have to worry for their family's future. Still, people generally want to do useful work, and keeping unproductive workers employed hurts them, other candidates, and the nation as a whole.

[eru]

Shouldn't you be able to buy unemployment insurance privately? (Okay, I know that may be a market for lemons because of the information asymmetries.. And you can't let people starve who haven't bought their insurance.)

[hga]

I've read that was made illegal in the US.

[eru]

Interesting. You mean private unemployment insurance? On what grounds?

[hga]

Yes, private unemployment insurance. I don't know what the excuse was (this happened a long time ago), but the effect is obvious (governments are the only ones that offer it).

You can buy private disability insurance while the government offers the same thing through the Social Security Administration, but not private unemployment insurance in any form....

[eru]

Interesting. What level of government banned the private unemployment insurance? I guess it was a federal law?