Paul Krugman Quotes

It is well known that unemployment benefits raise unemployment durations.

If there's unemployment, having the government help reduce that unemployment, increase employment directly is a pretty good idea. It's not driving out competition; it's not crowding out.

Like many places across the country, Wisconsin lost more than 100,000 jobs from 2008 to 2010. Unemployment during that time topped out at over 9%.

Because a person has to be either working or looking for work to be counted as part of the labor force, an increase in the number of people too discouraged to continue their search for work would reduce the unemployment rate, all else being equal - but not for a positive reason.

A while ago I did a story comparing the change in employment rates in recessions in the U.S. and in Europe, and what I found was that America fired a lot of people and rehired a lot of people faster than Europe. That difference is disappearing, and that is a problem.

I've heard the argument that unemployment benefits somehow act as a disincentive to the long-term unemployed when it comes to looking for work, but the opposite is true. Unemployment Insurance serves as a powerful incentive for people to keep searching for jobs, rather than drop out of the labor force altogether.

The rich countries seem to need 5 or 6 percent unemployment to make the economy hum.

Unemployed people are spoiled

Treating unemployment as a national problem is almost always a mistake. Employment trends vary dramatically by race, geography, gender and level of education. But none of that is reflected in the all-encompassing unemployment rate, and hence policies informed only by that number are bound to fall short.

There are a number of people who are not in the workforce who have given up looking for jobs, and that's the real economic crisis in America.

The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.

The White House says that the unemployment rate is good news because it means more people are looking for jobs. More good news like that, and everyone at the White House will be looking for jobs.

Unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program

You can have a wages policy imposed by mass unemployment.

People respond to incentives. If unemployment becomes more attractive because of the unemployment benefit, some unemployed workers may no longer try to find a job or may not try to find one as quickly as they would without the benefit.

President Bush is trying to put a positive spin on the latest bad economic numbers. Today he declared victory in the 'War on Jobs.'

Millions of Americans are either underemployed or unemployed.

You see, you can't put joblessness in a jail cell.

They keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where people are afraid to go out and get a job, because the job doesn't pay as much as the unemployment benefit does.

History teaches that the level of unemployment is not as important as whether the rate's going down.

Unemployment is due to the large import of goods from Britain and other countries. The Government haven't used the powers which they have for the benefit of the country.

In my view, if you have one in 10 unemployed - something is wrong with the economy whether you call it recession or not.

The jobs outlook in the U.S. isn't very good. And it's really about young people.

When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results.

Any degree of unemployment worries me.