In April 1966, with the economy running hot and workers in short supply, California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan did not mince words about the wisdom of providing government money to the unemployed or about the character of recipients.
“Unemployment insurance,” Reagan is reported to have told a Republican dinner crowd, “is a prepaid vacation for freeloaders.”
Whether Reagan actually meant those words is questionable, but a half-century later they still echo albeit less harshly in the debate over possible reasons for the recent gap between available jobs and workers willing to fill them. Suspicions remain that among the nation’s unemployed are slackers exploiting the pandemic-related benefits flowing from Washington and state governments.