Take cuts in unemployment benefit, which spur the jobless to find work.
There, deep cuts in unemployment benefit and sickness pay have been made, while limited labour-market reforms have helped push down unemployment to little more than half German levels.
This sentiment is not difficult to understand during a time when unemployment is close to 10%, those unemployed for durations longer than 2 years is increasing, an the extensions in unemployment benefit programs are set to expire for 800, 000 million Americans this month.
True, as Labour points out, some of the fall in measured unemployment reflects a decline in benefit claims due to the tough eligibility rules of the new Jobseeker's Allowance, introduced last year in place of the old Unemployment Benefit.
The snag is that fewer than 2, 000 people in Reading are claiming unemployment benefit.
The alliance would pay for this in part by cutting unemployment benefit, from about 80% of previous income to 65%.
Over the past year the number of people claiming unemployment related benefit in Northern Ireland has increased by 2, 900, which was again lower than the UK annual increase.
It has one of the most generous unemployment benefit systems in Europe, with unemployment benefits representing, on average, 33.6% of a person's previous earnings in 2007, compared with 13.6% in the U.S. and 12.1% in the U.K. The country's robust benefits are the result of high income taxes and VAT.
Europe's citizens will also see the benefit, in lower unemployment and a higher standard of living.
They include early retirees, full-time students and those on disability benefit who are not included in official unemployment statistics.
The number of people claiming unemployment benefit fell by 7, 000 in May.
Disappointing first-quarter GDP figures and a flurry of negative data this week it was announced that unemployment-benefit claims had crept up in June, while exports fell unexpectedly throw doubt on the robustness of recovery.
The Iron Lady, Mrs Thatcher, was widely seen to have smashed this cosy consensus, but in fact left the National Health Service, the unemployment benefit, and many other welfare provisions, if not unscathed, still standing.
The unemployment statistics "masked the huge rise in numbers on incapacity benefit that had taken place under the Tories and was continuing under us" he conceded.
In America some states pay no benefit for the first week of unemployment, giving the worker an incentive to find a job straight away.
In this and the neighbouring council ward, the number of people on unemployment benefit is not much above 4%.
In the longer term, Ms Horowitz wants a new sort of unemployment-benefit system based on a savings vehicle, rather than insurance.
In the 1990s, the rise in unemployment was masked by many people taking early retirement and going on disability benefit - something which has not happened so far.
In its first two years, the government has pushed through an unemployment-benefit scheme, measures to reduce tax evasion, new labour rights, and laws liberalising capital and financial markets.
Shortening the period of entitlement to unemployment benefit, for instance, would only bring it back to the position in 1985, hardly as radical a move as it first appears.
The number of 18 to 24-year-olds claiming unemployment benefit for more than a year continued to rise - from 1, 500 in September 2011 to 4, 700 last month.
While recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-2009 has been stymied by weak housing and high unemployment, recent economic data suggest a quickening pace of growth in gross domestic product, which should benefit small-cap equities.
The lack of growth makes cutting the deficit more difficult because when an economy is not growing, less tax is coming in from companies and individuals, while the government has to spend more on welfare payments, such as unemployment benefit.
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