When the latest unemployment figures came out last Friday showing the joblessness rate rising to 7.2 percent, the U.S. House of Representatives was quick to respond, passing its first major economic legislation of the new Congress.

Sadly, the House-passed bill does nothing to help create jobs or end the recession. Instead the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will vastly increase potential legal liability for businesses, making it more expensive to put new employees on the payroll.

 

For a Congress ostensibly intent on “stimulating” the economy, passage of a bill to discourage hiring seems an odd priority, understandable only as a reward to politically favored groups – trial lawyers and organized labor.