Putting the Squeeze on Jobless Benefits

It's the wrong time to cut unemployment benefits, so why are Republican-run states doing it anyway?

By Annie Lowrey
Posted Friday, May 6, 2011, at 2:59 PM ET

This morning's jobs report confirms for what feels like the thousandth month in a row that the U.S. economy is getting better, but from a very low trough and somewhat slowly. The economy added 244,000 jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning. But the unemployment rate jumped up two-tenths of a percentage point, to 9.0 percent. The month saw the strongest job growth since 2006. But there were fewer people employed overall.

The report, then, will do little to change Americans' firm, and correct, conviction that the economy is still totally in the can. According to a CNN survey released today, about 80 percent of Americans say the economy is in poor shape. Only 1 percent—hedge fund managers and the serially confused, perhaps—say the economy is "very good." Unemployment remains the top concern. So why are governments across the country starting to kick the support out from under the chairs of the jobless?