In urging Congress to extend jobless benefits, President Obama went beyond short-term aid and called on the country to rethink how it looks at unemployment, recognizing the long-term devastating costs of having so many unproductive people on its hands for long periods. Specifically, Obama endorsed a work-sharing plan embraced in Europe that averts layoffs by spreading the pain among co-workers, as well as a more controversial bridge-to-work idea that puts people who are on unemployment benefits into training or temporary work that would set them on a path toward regular jobs. The president also proposed, as part of his $447-billion...
