{"id":29909,"date":"2019-08-17T18:27:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-17T23:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29909"},"modified":"2019-08-17T18:27:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-17T23:27:18","slug":"briefly-university-study-about-jobless-people-fails-to-understand-human-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29909","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: University study about jobless people fails to understand human nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Lazy-man.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-29910\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Lazy-man.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Lazy-man.jpg 460w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Lazy-man-300x176.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I saw the headline, I assumed it was satire, but I quickly realized that somebody really was dumb enough to be confused about this: \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/u-research-digs-into-why-people-with-generous-unemployment-benefits-take-longer-to-find-work\/530858221\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">University of Minnesota digs into why people with generous unemployment benefits take longer to find work<\/a>.\u201d That was a headline in the Minneapolis Star-Tribute last weekend. Whoever could take this question seriously doesn\u2019t understand human nature. The article says, \u201c&#8230;[W]hen people are offered more generous unemployment benefits \u2014 such as a longer time horizon and higher payments \u2014 they take longer to find new jobs.\u201d Well, duh. Is anybody surprised by this? The researcher who led the study says she sees no evidence that it\u2019s because people are slackers, but she doesn\u2019t understand human nature. If somebody is paying you while you\u2019re unemployed, your incentive to look hard for a job is lower and you can be pickier about which job to accept. You can turn your nose up at bad jobs. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t have sympathy for people who are struggling to find work. I was there just five years ago. But I do understand human nature. When you\u2019re broke and the wolf is banging at your door, you\u2019re willing to take anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I saw the headline, I assumed it was satire, but I quickly realized that somebody really was dumb enough to be confused about this: \u201cUniversity of Minnesota digs into why people with generous unemployment benefits take longer to find work.\u201d That was a headline in the Minneapolis Star-Tribute last weekend. Whoever could take this <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29909\" class=\"more-link\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-briefly","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-7Mp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29911,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29909\/revisions\/29911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}