How is government involved in unemployment? Well, it’s:

• Passing lots of rules and regulations that make it more expensive to run businesses and hire new people.
• Picking winners and losers according to nepotism, favoritism, and cronyism.
• Hiring bureaucrats. Lots and lots of bureaucrats.

The government has a lot of good intentions in the job world. Bureaucrats want to protect consumers, workers, and the environment. But in practice, they end up protecting people from jobs.

As starting a business and navigating all the regulations becomes increasingly complex and expensive, it gets harder for businesses to expand and make new jobs. Lest you think there’s a level playing field, this is all to the advantage of large corporations that can afford lots of lawyers, and to the detriment of your friend who wants to make custom t-shirts in his garage and can get shut down from one little misstep. The government helps the most with job creation by doing the least, but politicians never get credit for not doing things.

But if you can’t get a job, at least the government can pay you unemployment and give you food stamps to at least make you more comfortable with joblessness. Yay.

Check out these links to learn more:

• Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America
• The Redistribution Recession
• Individual Unemployment Accounts

Source:  http://www.mygovcost.org/issues/unemployment/