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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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He was one of those who was sold on the idea that an employment service, which is just a method of getting people jobs and filling jobs for people who want some workers, was terribly bound up with unemployment insurance, which it isn't.

You don't go to the insurance company, for instance, to get your jewelry back. You go to the insurance company to collect the value of your loss. You go to the police department to try to get your jewelry back, because that's their function. When it's realized that there's no way to get the jewelry back, that it isn't going to come back, then you go to the insurance company to collect the value.

In the same way, you go to the unemployment insurance office to get money to live on while you're looking for a job, but you don't expect them to get you a job. You go to the employment office to get you a job, and the two are not connected except that you have a little yellow ticket, as they do in England, that says that you are honestly seeking work and are registered at the employment office, and that as of this date there is no work for you. On that you collect your insurance up to the amount that you are entitled to.

But there is a theoretical position, which some of the theorists took, that the two were very much bound together. I was always opposed to the Employment Service going in with unemployment insurance, no matter where unemployment insurance was. I thought unemployment insurance should be administered in the Labor Department, but even if it was I would never





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