In light of MZ’s post on the refusal to the Republicans to extend unemployment benefits to over a million of our brother and sisters who cannot find work, I thought I would recognize some core Catholic teaching in this area. Here is John Paul II in Laborem Exercens:
“The role of the agents included under the title of indirect employer [at the national and international level that are responsible for the whole orientation of labour policy] is to act against unemployment, which in all cases is an evil, and which, when it reaches a certain level, can become a real social disaster….obligation to provide unemployment benefits, that is to say, the duty to make suitable grants indispensable for the subsistence of unemployed workers and their families, is a duty springing from the fundamental principle of the moral order in this sphere, namely the principle of the common use of goods or, to put it in another and still simpler way, the right to life and subsistence.”
And what about other social benefits, including health care?
“Besides wages, various social benefits intended to ensure the life and health of workers and their families play a part here. The expenses involved in health care, especially in the case of accidents at work, demand that medical assistance should be easily available for workers, and that as far as possible it should be cheap or even free of charge….A third sector concerns the right to a pension and to insurance for old age and in case of accidents at work.”
Just something to keep in mind.
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