President-elect Barack Obama and other political leaders have talked about taking swift action to get the economy back on course and aid struggling Americans. But missing from the debate is close attention to the skimpy, counter-productive U.S. safety net, even as hundreds of thousands of Americans are tumbling toward it.

The scale of that collective fall was made clear last week: Nearly a quarter-million payroll jobs were slashed in October, on top of some 284,000 jobs lost in September. The unemployment rate jumped from 6.1 percent in September to 6.5 percent in October. On Monday, a report from research group the Conference Board indicated employers will continue to “aggressively reduce payrolls well into 2009.”

On his campaign Web site, Obama calls for updating the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance system, which gives some workers dislocated by trade such benefits as income support and a health coverage tax credit. Obama would take steps such as extending TAA to service industries and creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain.

These are worthy steps. But Obama’s plan appears to overlook the many folks who lose their job for reasons unrelated to global trade. Construction employment, for example, fell by 49,000 in October.

The push by Democrats in Congress to extend unemployment insurance benefits also is promising but only a partial solution.

In particular, U.S. political leaders seem oblivious to how paltry unemployment checks are. In California, for example, unemployment payments top out at $450 a week. That’s about half the income of someone earning annual wages of $46,700. It’s hard to get by on half your income. And in a way, the cap is tougher for someone used to making roughly $70,000—say a software programmer or accountant—who has to make ends meet with a mere third of their wages.

In the past decade, Americans have become more open to government helping the needy. But unemployment benefits in the U.S. still reflect a philosophy of rugged individualism, and they are among the most miserly in the developed world.

Apart from stingy payments, there are gaps in unemployment insurance coverage. And the federal law requiring firms to give advance notice of mass layoffs and plant closings is weak.

Obama is right to think about large-bore measures like a major public investment in a “clean energy” economy. But it would be a serious oversight to ignore America’s flimsy safety net.

The combination of sudden job losses and scant unemployment payments is sure to worsen the U.S. economy. People in such circumstances could well lose their homes, exacerbating the housing market collapse.

They would have little money to spend to boost the economy. And the stories of their hardship—retold through family, friends and the media—would further shake consumer confidence.

A more generous, taut safety net could help restore that confidence, underpin personal spending and lead to calmer, more productive employees.

Weaving a stronger net also would be humane and embody the sense of national solidarity that Obama has spoken about so eloquently.

If change is coming to America, shouldn’t it come to our economic safety net too?