Like trying to get blood from a pelican

Here is what decades of allowing the business lobby in Baton Rouge to write the laws and procedures for distributing unemployment benefits gets you.

The $216 paid in Louisiana is the 49th lowest amount in the country. Only Mississippi, at $214 per week, pays less. But Louisiana’s rate is actually lower when average wages are factored in, because wages in Louisiana tend to be higher.

Only 11% of unemployed workers actually receive unemployment insurance because of restrictions on who qualifies and perhaps because of the low amount they would receive. The 11% rate ranks Louisiana as 46th in the country.

“That’s a system that’s barely functioning,” Michael Leachman, senior director of state fiscal research for the CBPP, said in an interview. “Louisiana’s unemployment system is one of the weakest in the country, if not the weakest.”

Anyone who has had to deal with this miserly system will also tell you applicants must confront a confusing website where they must answer a series of intrusive questions meant to intimidate and shame them for having to request even this meager amount of assistance.  There is very little in person help available. Often people without internet access have to wait in line for computer time at a public library.  Those are all closed right now because of the virus.

Is the system "broken?" Well it is if you think it is supposed to help people. But really this is a prod meant to keep workers intimidated and compliant. And as we are seeing this week, some people think this is a necessary function,  even in the midst of a pandemic.