We’ve written before about job ads and hiring practices that exclude unemployed candidates from applying. Mitchell Hirsch, an associate at the National Employment Law Project, recently alerted me that President Obama had expressed support for outlawing such practices.

CATHERINE RAMPELL

Dollars to doughnuts.

From an interview with the president on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, a national radio program, which aired on Tuesday:

Well, there is no doubt that folks who have been unemployed longer than six months have a tougher time getting back into the job market. Now, the single most important thing we can do is just have the economy strong so that employers aren’t as choosy because they’ve got to hire because their businesses are expanding.

But we have seen instances in which employers are explicitly saying we don’t want to take a look at folks who’ve been unemployed. Well, that makes absolutely no sense, and I know there’s legislation that I’m supportive of that says you cannot discriminate against folks because they’ve been unemployed, particularly when you’ve seen so many folks who, through no fault of their own, ended up being laid off because of the difficulty of this recession.

Mr. Obama appears to be referring to this bill, introduced by Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut.

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