If I had to guess, the $600 bonus in weekly unemployment insurance is likely to be extended by Congress — even though it probably shouldn’t be. But this is an election year, and politicians of all parties want to be known as the people who stuffed that pinata that is government.

One of the best scholars on this subject happens to be my old professor at the London School of Economics, Richard Layard. He’s no right-winger, he was actually made a Lord for his services to progressive thinking. One paper of his on the point is here, containing this wisdom: “If you pay people to be inactive, there will be more inactivity.” Thus we should, if people need to be paid at all, pay them for being active instead.