Jobless debate pointless if there's nothing to eat

As we all nervously wait to see if we are in for a double-dip recession, with one out of 10 workers out of work, Congress is debating whether unemployment assistance increases joblessness.

Republicans, who have been successfully blocking extending unemployment checks, argue that such help to workers who lost their jobs increases the likelihood that they will turn down jobs to keep receiving aid.

Democrats insist that unemployment checks are vital to keep millions of families from destitution.

Academic evidence is sketchy, although past research indicated that the security of a year of unemployment checks made some unemployed workers pickier about available jobs and extended by one to two months the time they were out of work.

But that was when jobs were more plentiful than they are now. The Labor Department says that there are five applicants for every job opening. It is not unusual for hundreds of people to apply for one job. Anyone who has seen the incredibly long lines of résumé-wielding men and women at job fairs knows this recession is different. Extending unemployment assistance in a bad economic climate such as this one adds only about 10 days to the period before workers begin a new job.

The pool of jobs is simply not replenishing. Businesses are closing their doors, laying off excess workers, and workers who leave or retire are not being replaced. And the economic ramifications of the Gulf oil spill are only now starting to have a national impact.

Those who argue that extending unemployment benefits is a disincentive to finding replacement jobs miss the point that the vast majority of Americans want to work, like their jobs and desperately miss working when they lose their jobs.

Some workers are pondering starting their own businesses, often on the Internet. But even in good times, most startups fail. Besides, banks are not being overly generous these days in their lending practices, even to established businesses, let alone startups.

The good argument for not extending unemployment benefits is that with a huge annual deficit and a huge national debt, we don't have the money to do everything we want to do. But how can a family facing true hardship with no source of income understand Congress not giving them more weeks of unemployment when banks and car companies have been bailed out with billions and we are fighting two costly wars?