IN A FEW MONTHS, George W. Bush will be out of a job. (It ought to have happened four years ago, but that is a topic for another day.)

No doubt the current occupant of the White House will be taken care of. A few high-paying speaking engagements will be arranged, until people remember that speaking is not exactly what he does. Bush’s utterances are more like stream of consciousness made oral, with a few slogans and policy words burped up for show.

As in the past, some family friend could arrange a job. Bush flopped at the oil business, but maybe someone will give him a team to run. It could be a little volleyball troupe or some kind of squad, say the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Or he could buy a little city — Galveston, Texas, as in that old short story by Donald Barthelme.

Whatever happens, it is doubtful the current occupant is worried. This probably explains why, over the summer, he mightily resisted extending unemployment benefits. There had to be lazy little creeps out there who didn’t want to work and were looking for a handout instead. Bush is not the kind of guy who believes in this. (A fun new reality TV show might be to give him about $300 a week, the average unemployment check, and see how our head boot-strapper does.)

For that matter, the C.O. does not believe the United States is particularly facing any problems. He said so to Bob Costas, in an interview while he was visiting the Olympics, and while Russian soldiers were visiting Georgia. Here Bob had gone out on a limb, referring to problems as if we all agreed on them. Very embarrassing for Bob.

Job loss is a big problem, though, especially if you ask the people going through it. For six consecutive months, from January to June, the nation axed more and more jobs, racking up a grand total of 438,000 for the first half of the year.

The losses have been record losses. March brought the biggest nationwide drop in five years. In Rhode Island, in May, the unemployment rate hit a 14-year high of 7.2 percent. Our state was second-worst in the country, just behind Michigan, where they make the cars no one is buying. Nationally, about 8.5 million Americans were unemployed.

Unemployment rates, of course, always look better than they are. They omit the number of discouraged workers who have quit looking for jobs (roughly 400,000 people about now), and do not mention those who have involuntarily been cut to part-time hours. The number of the latter now stands at 5.3 million, according to a New York Times report. That’s a million more than a year ago.

So, for many Americans, paychecks are eroding just when food, gas and heating prices are climbing. At the same time, a new wave of mortgages is resetting to higher interest rates.

What to do if the crunch hits? For starters, you can cut out the Starbucks lattes. This should be easy. Starbucks is shutting down stores and firing 12,000 workers. But it gets harder after that.

Historically, Americans out of work have looked to unemployment checks to tide them over. But the unemployment-insurance system is built on an obsolete model, one based on male breadwinners and clever gals who know how to extend a can of tuna in a pinch.

As a result, most Americans are not covered. Just 37 percent of the unemployed received benefits last year, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing Labor Department statistics. The comparable figure in 1958 was 55 percent.

The excluded, usually, are those stuck in low-wage or part-time work.

Someone in Congress must have almost noticed what was going on. In June, legislators pushed through a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits, which are typically set at about six months. The C.O. grumbled but signed on: the extension was attached to emergency funding for his wars.

Even so, he had press secretary Dana Perino out there grousing that the unemployment rate was historically low, and therefore no excuse for compassion.

Given that the jobless situation is expected to worsen, probably deep into next year, extending unemployment benefits is smart. It puts money directly into the hands of those who need it most and will spend it, braking the slide of our famous consumer economy (which, when it slides, requires further layoffs). It would make even more sense to restructure the unemployment-insurance system so that it gives some help to the underemployed.

This will not happen as long as George W. Bush is in the top job, though. Till January, our problems are officially few. Let us hope that the N.O. (next occupant) has eyes that see, and a plan to help.

M.J. Andersen is a member of The Journal’s editorial board.