Since Black Bear Entertainment began advertising for job applicants for its proposed casino in Oxford, the group has received 4,200 inquiries.

Which speaks, we think, to the overwhelming desire of most Mainers to be productively employed or to find a better job.

That’s why we find it disturbing to hear people suggest that denying people unemployment benefits will somehow reduce the unemployment rate.

Wisely, neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress seem likely to do that at this point. Still, the chatter continues — unemployment is high because people would rather sit on a sofa than work.

According to a tentative agreement reached Monday between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders, extended unemployment benefits will be continued through 2011.

Still, there are those who seem intent upon blaming the unemployed for remaining unemployed.

This, despite the longest recession since the Great Depression and evidence that there are between five and six job seekers for every job available.

And this, despite a report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee that dismissed the idea this way: “Those fears (that unemployment benefits discourage people from taking jobs) are unfounded.”

In the U.S., full employment is defined as a 3 percent unemployment rate. It is practically impossible, and probably undesirable, to drop below that rate.

Ideally, unemployment insurance provides a temporary bridge for people to find new jobs. And, in most cases, it does.

Hundreds of thousands of people do find jobs well before the normal 27-week limit.

However, when the official unemployment rate soars to nearly 10 percent, there is no way the economy can absorb that may job seekers, so unemployment eligibility is extended.

What we have now are people who have worked 20, 30 or 40 years — people with savings, homes, cars and other obligations — out of work, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and with far fewer jobs available.

Research shows that losing a job is only slightly less traumatic than losing a mate, a child or undergoing a divorce. To people who are used to working, it hurts.

In a country that values work, people often feel valueless. They are often unable to provide for their families and end up losing their savings and even retirement savings.

In many cases, they lose their homes and their marriages.

And unemployment compensation isn’t exactly a comfortable living. In Maine, the average benefit is $271 per week, or less than $7 per hour.

But here’s the real problem: The longer a person is out of work, the more unlikely they are to find work again. They become discouraged, their skills start to become obsolete and, of course, employers wonder about the big gap in their resumes.

Eventually, they will take a job at a much lower rate than they were accustomed, if they can find one. Or, worse, they will retire early or rely on even more costly programs such as welfare or disability.

The worst outcome for the U.S. would be to develop a large group of unemployable middle-aged and older workers, who were stopped cold in mid-career, bitterly disappointed and far less prepared to fund their own retirements.

Not getting those folks back into the work force would be nothing short of a generational tragedy.

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