Extended Unemployment Benefits Make Sense

Of all the quixotic policy battles over the last few years, my nominee for the most misguided is the one over extended unemployment benefits. Although I opposed Obamacare, and wasn't overly enthusiastic about the stimulus (particularly its composition), the Democrats had the right of it on extended unemployment benefits: In the depths of the Great Recession, extending benefits was good policy. Our only mistake was not making them longer, and more generous.

Many of my readers will say that I am crazy, and probably announce that I am once again being expelled from the libertarian movement. Hear me out. Extended unemployment benefits may not be the best possible policy in the best possible world. Yet for the dilemma that the U.S. faced in 2009, they were the best policy we had.