"They become employed as ditch diggers at a wage equal to unemployment benefits. The effect on employed earthmovers/DMV workers is that their wages will probabl

"They become employed as ditch diggers at a wage equal to unemployment benefits. The effect on employed earthmovers/DMV workers is that their wages will probably be lowered." So you're advocating government creation of low-wage, dead-end make-work jobs on projects that don't create any value, and the destruction of current job wages and benefits through artificial government-subsidized worker oversupply. This is the GULAG, but I don't understand what the ideological benefit for the inmates is. Oh yeah, and the GULAG actually created a lot of value from gold mining and timber-cutting. "My theory is that the only way to improve our employment situation is to lower wages, relocate workers, and accept that technology has made some people obsolete." The market is already doing all of that, why do you need to get the government involved? I'm arguing that the employment situation does not need improvement. We should accept the productivity improvements of technological change, and use it to work less. People playing x-box on unemployment benefits is a good thing.