Democrats were in the minority, they pushed for an even more ambitious program: extra payments for the unemployed—so-called automatic stabilizers—that would not be at the whim of congressional approval, but would trigger whenever the jobless rate rose above 6 percent.28 It was no more than a trial balloon, but it highlighted the key weaknesses at the hinge between American society and the economy: the patchwork and exclusionary nature of what passed for a welfare state.
