> We pay people unemployment compensation because the knock-on effects from someone taking the next-best job are serious
We have unemployment insurance not because of sentimentality, but because insurance is economically useful. A person cannot insure themselves from loss of wage income, so paying some overhead to have the government do it makes sense.
Freezing evictions does not make sense. We do not freeze layoffs, for example, in our unemployment insurance program. We let employers make the layoffs they need and then have an insurance pool that the laid off can draw from.
A proposal to have rental insurance that you contribute to and can then draw from for temporary eviction assitance might be a good idea -- it depends very much on how it's implemented.
One of these has economic benefits but the other does not. Both are sentimental in nature, but that is not a sufficient condition to adopt a policy -- actual economic outcomes has to be the deciding factor.
We have unemployment insurance not because of sentimentality, but because insurance is economically useful. A person cannot insure themselves from loss of wage income, so paying some overhead to have the government do it makes sense.
Freezing evictions does not make sense. We do not freeze layoffs, for example, in our unemployment insurance program. We let employers make the layoffs they need and then have an insurance pool that the laid off can draw from.
A proposal to have rental insurance that you contribute to and can then draw from for temporary eviction assitance might be a good idea -- it depends very much on how it's implemented.
One of these has economic benefits but the other does not. Both are sentimental in nature, but that is not a sufficient condition to adopt a policy -- actual economic outcomes has to be the deciding factor.