Republicans right about extended unemployment benefits?

Back in January there was a big fight over whether to extend extended unemployment benefits. Democrats wanted to extend them, Republicans did not. In the end, they were not extended. Since then, jobs growth in the first half of year has been faster than last year or any time during the recovery. Since February job gains have averaged about 240K/month compared to around 190K/month last year.



Charles Krauthammer last month said that this vindicated the GOP and proved they were right.



But Krauthammer is partisan, so maybe his arguments don't carry much weight.



Except now researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank have studied the question and come to a similar conclusion:



Dallas and St. Louis Fed researchers find that extended emergency jobless benefits perpetuated unemployment

Quote:

Researchers at two regional Federal Reserve banks — in Dallas and St. Louis — have found that extended emergency unemployment benefits for long-term unemployed people delayed their job searches and sustained high unemployment. The federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation program provided extra weeks of federal unemployment insurance benefits to long-term unemployed workers on top of up to 26 weeks of state benefits. It began in 2008 in response to a rocketing U.S. jobless rate during the recession and expired in December 2013 after several extensions. Such extended benefits have been a topic of debate, with supporters saying they provided a crucial resource for long-term unemployed people to continue to look for work and critics claiming they reduced job-search efforts and decreased workers’ chances of becoming re-employed. . . .