Ben Stein: Dissing the Unemployed? No Way, No How

(July 20) -- Today, AOL posted an essay on WalletPop by an unemployed father, an Aaron Crowe in the San Francisco area, which, to put it mildly, unfairly claims I "dissed the unemployed" as a way of helping the fight against extending unemployment benefits.

I wish the author well as a freelance writer, but here's what I really said:

1) I said that of the unemployed I know, many have poor work habits and difficult personalities. I made no claim to have made any scientific study of unemployment generally and indeed have not done so. It is a fact that in my experience, the people who have the worst work habits get laid off first. I don't know how Mr. Crowe, the author of the essay criticizing me, can have any idea whatsoever of what my experience is -- or how he can dispute it.

2) I also said there were major and glaring exceptions to this general observation, which Mr. Crowe declined to quote. I do know a number of unemployed persons with fine work habits and personalities but -- in my experience -- they are a bit rare. They may not be rare in Mr. Crowe's experience but I was writing about my experience, as to which, again, he apparently knows very little.

3) If Mr. Crowe had spent even a short time looking into my views on extending unemployment benefits, he would know I have parted company with my party in enthusiastically endorsing such an extension. It is heartless to not allow such an extension in these current difficult times.

4) My grandfather was an extremely capable and hard working skilled tool and die maker in Schenectady and was unemployed despite his fine work ethic for most of the Great Depression. I have nothing but sympathy for genuinely hard working, willing workers or would-be workers. To say otherwise is deeply untrue and not at all a reflection of what I wrote or believe.

Good luck to you, Mr. Crowe. You have found a simple key to getting your name in the papers–say something bad about someone famous. Now try for the next rung. Make it fairly reflect what I said...not just what gets you in the news.

Ben Stein is an economist, lawyer, actor, comedian, public speaker and university teacher, and he was a speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He has also written several books, the latest of which is "The Little Book of Bulletproof Investing," written with Phil DeMuth.

MORE BY BEN STEIN ON AOL NEWS
A Few Facts on Tax Cuts and Deficits
What My Father Left Me
An Insane Day on Wall Street
Why Greece Matters to Us
Giving Nixon His Due on Health Care Reform

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Ben Stein: 'Dissing' the Unemployed? No Way, No How

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