The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1932-09-30
Article No. l

The first and one of the most i'm
portant things to realize about un-
employment insurance is that it is
not and does not claim to be THE
solution for unemployment. Yet it
is criticized more severely for not be-
ing such a panacea than for any
actual failings. / suppose we all want
to take pink pill to cure our trou-
bles at one swallow, but we will get
along faster if we face the fact that
in this case a number of different
medicines are needed For there is
no real solution of unemployment
which does not include several solu-
tions. Among other things, we need
constantly increasing wages to enable
working people to buy the products
of factories. We need shorter hours,
so that available work may be divid-
ed among all those who are able to
do it. And with all it's values un-
employment insurance is not SUBJ
stitute for these steps and must not
be allowed to divert attention from
their necessity. For we agree with
the American plan opponents who
have always been SO anxious to guard
the initiative and independence of
working people, that "The American
workingman doesn't want insurance;
what he wants is job But that
does not answer the question, "What
are we going to do for a man who
wants an job and can't find it
That is where unemployment in
surance comes in. 1t is necessary
if we are not all to starve or be
forced to live in charity until we
can take steps to do away with un-
employment. And those steps may
take a long time. We are now talk
ing about the six-hour day and five.
day week, but there are still men
and women working ten and twelve
hours, seven days a week. Not nearly
as many as there were twenty-five
years ago, but still quite few. So
though we can be sure we will come
to the time when no one will work
more than thirty hours week, we
can be just as sure that we will come
to it slowly The same is even more
true of high wages. We made some
progress during the years of pros
perity, though not as much as we
should have, but we all know what
has happened in the past two years,
even though the employers them
selves have admitted wages should be
maintained.
And very likely we will never do
away with unemployment completely.
In spite of freproof buildings, we
still have fires. People die of diseases
we know how to cure. And even in
Russia where they claim to have
abolished unemployment, they have
unemployment insurance.
If unemployment insurance is not
the cure for all our troubles, how
much can we expect of it?
It's first job, of course, is to pro-
vide man who is unemployed
through no fault of his own with
enough money to tide him over for
several months. He receives this
without any investigation of his pri-
vate affairs-except of course to
make sure he is genuinely unem-
ployed-and he can spend it as he
pleases without interference from
any outsider Also, he receives in
surance benefits at the beginning of
the time he is unemployed instead
of after he has used up all his own
savings.
Insurance can also be counted on
to reduce unemployment to some ex-
tent. For one thing, it would make
employers anxious to stabilize en-
ployment, where they could do so, to
save themselves the cost of insur-
ance premiums, just as workmen's
compensation induced them to put in
safety devices. Furthermore, insur-
ance would act as brake at the
beginning of depression to keep