Unemployment Insurance Program: Protecting Workers, Stabilizing Economy - Essay Sample

Introduction

I want to propose for an unemployment insurance program that will help us, as a nation, to protect workers against income losses during the spells of unemployment. The program will help the unemployed workers meet their necessary consumptions and protect them from selling the assets to meet their daily needs (Alber et al, 2017). The program will also help in reducing the number of people who accept jobs that are below their job qualifications as well as helps to stabilize the economy during the recession's periods. An excellent example of the recession's period is during this period where the world is faced with the COVID-19 pandemic (Wandner, 2019). Most companies have been closed while those that are still operating have laid off a massive percentage of their employees. Those workers are struggling to survive. The unemployment insurance program would be useful in times like this.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

This policy aims to ensure that the workers are protected as well as minimize the undesirable side effects. Once a nation embraces the unemployment insurance program, a lot of people will be assisted. In some economies that have implemented the program, there are no cases of people who are unemployed being fed on relief food since the government provides for them through the applications. Instead, the relief food is given to the people who are disabled and have not worked before. Poverty levels have drastically decreased in these economies, all because of the unemployment insurance program (Popp et al, 2017). However, for this program to be effective, the people need to be registered before they can start benefiting from it.

In some countries, people quit their job because they feel that the government will provide for them once they are unemployed. However, this should not be the case; the program is there to help those who have lost their jobs involuntarily or because of a pandemic like the one facing the world. The program helps in ensuring that the citizen accepts jobs that are important to the economy despite the layoff risks. Research shows that some of the citizens refuse to work in individual companies in fear of layoffs (Maggio et al., 2016). When the program is fully implemented, the people will accept the jobs that are beneficial to the economy and will no longer be afraid of layoffs.

Most of the people oppose the program since it is believed that the plan raises the unemployment rates. They argue that people quit their jobs voluntarily since they know that the government will provide for them (Wandher et al, 2017). Similarly, those in search of employment may exaggerate their search activity thus may remain unemployed for a more extended period. I disagree with these assumptions because the program ensures that unemployed people stay in the labor force as they continue with the search activity. In Australia, the labor market endured massive losses during the recession period, which caused unemployment rates to increase by 10 percent (Conti et al, 2017). Some of the people blamed the unemployment insurance program, but the policymakers in this country decided to expand the systems further. It is true that if there are no policies to monitor the program, the unemployment rates will increases. Some strategies need to implement for the program to be active and help both the citizens and stabilize the economy. Before a person starts benefiting from the program, some requirements must be fulfilled (Duo, 2016). The requirements include:

• The citizen must possess an involuntary job termination.
• Must have registered with the national unemployment agency
• The previous employment duration should not be less than twelve months.
• Should have at least waited for fourteen days or more before they start benefiting from the program

The unemployed workers are expected to search for a job actively, however, this policy varies depending on the current situation since there is no valid proof that the unemployed worker was or is searching for a job (Schmieder, 2016).

The above are some of the factors that will ensure that people benefitting from the program are legit and that the program will not encourage people to involuntarily quit their current jobs because they are still being fed. The program is there to reduce poverty and unemployment levels.

The unemployment insurance program is there to help the people to meet their daily consumption despite the loss of their wages. It would be inappropriate if the program will be implemented and increase the rates of poverty rather than reducing them (Zweimuller et al, 2018). The unemployment benefits will help reduce the unemployed debts rather than spending it all. Also, some people are unemployed but still have access to some incomes, which may help them to cater to their bills. However, some did not have a chance to save from their earnings during their working period; hence do not have any income to take them through the job search period (Balducchi et al, 2018). Those people who are still able to access little income for sustainability are those that earned high salaries during the times when they were employed. The program, once implemented, will focus on those low-income earners.

During the period when low-income households involuntarily lose their jobs, they are unable to maintain their previous consumption levels. The program will help ensure that they still can provide for their households and also motivate them for job hunting. When the unemployed workers are registering the unemployment agency, the government requires them to leave documents showing their qualifications so that they are contacted in case of any opening. Therefore the program is not only for helping people maintain their consumption levels but also to inform them in case of job openings (Hsu et al, 2018). The overall purpose of the program is to eradicate poverty and lower employment rates.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like you to consider my proposal. Although the program may increase the consumption levels, at least the unemployed workers will still maintain the consumption levels before they lost their jobs. Furthermore, when the consumption increase, the country's economy is protected since the demand for goods will rise. The unemployment insurance program helps those households with no savings to maintain their assets with no wages but still maintain consumption levels. When the economy is doing well, few benefits are given; hence the spending will lower. I believe that the unemployment insurance program is of interest to everyone in the country as we all do not know when we will be laid off from our jobs.

Alber, Jens. "Government responses to the challenge of unemployment: the development of unemployment insurance in Western Europe." Development of welfare states in Europe and America. Routledge, 2017. 151-184.

Balducchi, David E., et al. Unemployment insurance reform: Fixing a broken system. WE Upjohn Institute, 2018.

Conti, Judith M. "Unemployment Insurance: An Overview of the Challenges and Strengths of Today's System." (2016).

Dou, Yiwei, Mozaffar Khan, and Youli Zou. "Labor unemployment insurance and earnings management." Journal of Accounting and Economics 61.1 (2016): 166-184.

Hsu, Joanne W., David A. Matsa, and Brian T. Melzer. "Unemployment insurance as a housing market stabilizer." American Economic Review 108.1 (2018): 49-81.

Maggio, Marco Di, and Amir Kermani. The importance of unemployment insurance as an automatic stabilizer. No. w22625. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016.

Popp, Aaron. "Unemployment insurance in a three-state model of the labor market." Journal of Monetary Economics 90 (2017): 142-157.

Schmieder, Johannes F., and Till Von Wachter. "The effects of unemployment insurance benefits: New evidence and interpretation." Annual Review of Economics 8 (2016): 547-581.

Wandner, Stephen A. "Why the Unemployment Insurance Program Needs to Be Reformed." Unemployment Insurance Reform: Fixing a Broken System. Kalamazoo, MI: WE Upjohn Institute for Employment Research (2018): 1.

Wandner, Stephen A., and Christopher J. O'Leary. "The Unemployment Insurance Program and Its Relationship to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program." Michael Wiseman, eds. 2019. Strengths of the Social Safety Net in the Great Recession: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance and Unemployment Insurance. Kalamazoo, MI: WE Upjohn Institute for Employment Research (2019): 61.

Zweimuller, Josef. "Unemployment insurance and the labor market." Labour Economics 53 (2018): 1-14.