For the price of the Iraq War, we could pay every unemployed American a Congressperson's annual salary.
According to the Department of Labor, 10.1 million Americans were unemployed in October, the highest figure since 1983. A Congressperson's salary for 2008 is $169,300. Paying each unemployed American a Congressional salary would cost $1.71 trillion, or $1.29 trillion less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the total cost of the Iraq War.
