Unemployment Benefits Cause Unemployment, Or Do They?

As May rolls by, unemployment in the U.S. continues to be a monumental problem. Fifteen million Americans are without jobs. 1.6 million young Americans will graduate from college next year and the class of 2009 still does not have jobs. And 1 million Americans are about to run out of unemployment benefits.

But not to worry! Larry Summers, Obama's head economic guru, thinks that if you don't have a job, it is because you are too lazy to work. But more recently, he has been saying the unemployment benefits are keeping you from going to work. So let's take a look at that claim.

Listed below are ten countries around the world along with two numbers; 1)current level of unemployment, and 2)the % of final salary people who lost their jobs can receive in benefits for the first year.

Country Unemployment Rate Unemployment Benefit

Norway 3.3% 72%
Spain 19% 69%
France 10.1% 67%
Germany 7.5% 64%
Canada 8.2% 52%
Turkey 14.5% 46%
Japan 4.9% 45%
South Korea 4.4% 31%
United Kingdom 8% 28%
United States 9.7% 28%

If you can find any correlation, formal or informal, between unemployment rates and unemployment benefits, I would greatly appreciate it if you would point it out to me.

And Larry Summers would REALLY like to see your work.