{"id":532604,"date":"2010-04-16T17:44:35","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T21:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011627507_causeofdeathneglectasaformerundergroundcoalminerireadwithinteres.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-04-16T17:44:35","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T21:44:35","slug":"cause-of-death-neglectas-a-former-underground-coal-miner-i-read-with-interest-the-cost-of-mining-coal-in-west-virginia-opinion-april-16-there-is-no-mystery-and-no-question-about-coal-mine-e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/532604","title":{"rendered":"Cause of death: neglect\nAs a former underground coal miner, I read with interest &#8220;The cost of mining coal in West Virginia&#8221; [Opinion, April 16].\nThere is no mystery and no question about coal-mine explosions. Coal-mine explosions are caused by one thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Unless policy gets back on track, unemployment train will continue<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Your recent editorial \u201cHelp the unemployed\u201d [Opinion, April 14] criticized the GOP for resisting efforts to extend unemployment benefits. It said \u201chelping those without work to sustain themselves until things improve is hardly a radical economic concept,\u201d yet the position of The Times appears to be based more on misplaced empathy than the time-proven economic principles that actually get people back to work.<\/p>\n<p>The Wall Street Journal\u2019s lead editorial of the previous day quoted President Obama\u2019s economic adviser, Lawrence Summers: \u201cThe second way government assistance program programs contribute to long term unemployment is by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a \u2018reservation wage\u2019 \u2014 the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase [the] reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Statistics show that most people will ride the unemployment assistance train to nearly the end of the line before they get serious about seeking work. Policies that encourage such behavior, on balance, benefit neither the unemployed nor the economy.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Bob Benze, Silverdale<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unless policy gets back on track, unemployment train will continue Your recent editorial \u201cHelp the unemployed\u201d [Opinion, April 14] criticized the GOP for resisting efforts to extend unemployment benefits. It said \u201chelping those without work to sustain themselves until things improve is hardly a radical economic concept,\u201d yet the position of The Times appears to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}