Unemployment Extension 2014: Republican Supporters Claim John Boehner Was Right To Deny More Benefits

The 2014 unemployment extension is still on the lips of many, but now that the unemployment rate has dropped to the lowest levels in six years, it’s claimed by Republican supporters that John Boehner and the House of Representatives were right to deny the extension of further unemployment benefits.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, the new unemployment extension bill in the Senate being created by both a Republican and a Democrat has removed retroactive benefits in hopes of saving money in order to entice more votes out of reluctant Democrats and Republicans. Although the report on the “regular” unemployment rate says the U.S. added 288,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also says the real unemployment rate is still at 12.1 percent and that during the last 14 years there has actually been a net decrease in jobs for native-born American citizens. This is claimed to be due to the large influx of legal and illegal immigrants, who have taken millions of the available jobs.

Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor. Speaking about the 2014 unemployment extension, Krathammer claims Boehner was right to deny a vote on the issue:

“These six months which Obama heralds as the largest, fastest growth in jobs in the U.S. since 1999, have coincided with the six months of which we have no longer extended emergency unemployment, long term unemployment. Remember at the end of last year the furious debate, the president, the Democrats saying, if you end this the sky is going to fall, people are going to go starving, there’s going to be an increase in unemployment. It’s had precisely the opposite effect.”

This quote almost sounds similar to those who complained that unemployment benefits have become a hammock for the jobless.

According to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, the hardest hit demographic to be affected by the lack of the 2014 unemployment extension may have been millennials. This 18 to 29 age group represents 40 percent of the unemployed while Generation X and baby boomers are 37 percent and 23 percent, respectively. In fact, the millennial unemployment rate stands at 15.2 percent, which is almost three times the normal unemployment rate.

The report also claims that millennials are losing out to the older generations when looking for work:

“Since the recession, the youngest job-hunters are being beaten by the oldest. The number of jobs held by baby boomers rose by 9% from 2007 to 2013, a gain of 1.9 million jobs, while the millennial workforce only snagged 110,000 jobs, up 0.3%, according to new analysis by software firm CareerBuilder and labor market data and software firm Economic Modeling Specialists International. (Generation X jobs fared worse, dropping 2.6 million, or 1%.)”

Of course, these reports do not take into account that older generations typically have larger bills like mortgages, car payment, and children’s expenses to worry about while many millennials tend to be single. So if you take that into consideration, the 2014 unemployment extension is most likely needed more by older Americans.

Do you think the lack of the 2014 unemployment extension may have spurred more job creation? Or do you think GOP supporters are missing the mark?