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Zhic ;New Uork Zinico 
No Jobs, no benefits and lousy pay. 
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD: January 10, 2014 
There is nothing good to say about the December employment report, which showed that only 74,000 
jobs were at last month. But dismal as it was, the report came at an opportune moment. The new numbers 
review the Republican arguments that the jobless benefits be not be renewed, and that the current 
minimum wage is adequate. At the same time, they are the score of the need, only recently raised to the 
top of the political agenda, to combat poverty and inequality. 
The report showed that average monthly job growth in 2013 was 182,000, basically unchanged from 2012. 
Even the decline in the jobless rate last month, from 7 percent in November to 6.7 percent, was a sign of 
weakness: It mainly reflects a shrinking labor force - nothing new hiring - as the share of workers employed 
are looking for work fell to the lowest level since 1978. That's a tragic waste of human capital. It would be 
comforting to ascribe when the dwindling labor force mainly to retirements or other long-term changes, 
but most of the decline is due to weak job opportunities and weak labor demand since the Great 
Recession. 
One result is that the share of jobless workers who have been unemployed for 6 months or longer has 
remained stubbornly high. In December, it was nearly 38 percent, still higher by far than at any time 
before the Great Recession, and the records going back to 1948. 
And yet, nearly 1.3 million of those long term unemployed had their federal jobless benefits abruptly cut 
off at the end of last year, after Republicans refused to renew the federal unemployment program and 
the latest budget deal. Each week the program is not reinstated, another 72,000 jobless people who 
otherwise would have qualified for benefits will find that there is no longer a federal program to turn to. 
Worse, in the Senate this week, after a showing of willingness to discuss renewing the benefits, 
.Republicans objected to a bill to do just that. They had demanded that a renewal be paid for, but they 
didn't like how Democrats proposed to do that - with spending cuts at the end of the budget window in 
2024 in exchange for relief today. 
There was no need to pay for the benefits, which have a crucial and positive effect - on families, the 
economy and poverty - that it would be sound to renew them even if the government barn to do so. But 
Republicans would rather criticized President Obama's handling of the economy then help those left 
behind. 
A similar dynamic is developing around the drive for a higher minimum wage. In December jobs report, 
the average hourly wage for most workers was $20.35. That means that the minimum wage, at $7.25 an 
hour, is one-third the average, rather than one-half, as was the case historically. Raising the wage to 
$10.10 an hour, as Democrats have proposed, with help to restore the historical relationship. But even 
that would fall far short of the roughly $17 an hour that workers at the bottom of the wage scale would 
be earning increased labor productivity were reflected in their pay, rather than in corporate profits, 
executive compensation and shareholder return. 
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Republicans, however, are opposed to any increase, as if the numbers don't speak for themselves. Their 
stance also dismisses research, and common sense, which says that raising the wages of low and moderate 
income workers is essential for lessening both poverty and inequality. 
Instead, in the past week, they have introduced ostensibly "antipoverty" ideas, most prominently Senator 
Marco Rubio's plan to transform federal safety net programs into state block grants, another of the 
shopworn Republican ideas that include privatizing federal services and slashing domestic spending. Block 
grants have allowed States to disregard the needs of the least fortunate. The proposal would set that the 
debate on wages, poverty and inequality. The December jobs report is telling Congress what it needs to 
do. Unfortunately, that will not lead to action anytime soon. 
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