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How about a new government program that pays benefits to laid-off manufacturing workers who accept new jobs at lower pay? We'd call it "wage insurance," and the payments would make up a portion--perhaps 50%--of displaced workers' wage loss. A guy making $60,000 a year at a steel mill who got laid off and took a new job earning $40,000 at the widget factory, for example, would get $10,000 from the Feds during his first year at the new place.