How the Nanny State Destroys Jobs

The New Media Journal ^ | August 30, 2007 | Warner Todd Huston

[NewMediaJournal]

In Sidney, Montana the owner of the local McDonald's fast food joint cannot get workers to staff his restaurant. This sounds like a bad thing and for owner John Francis, it is, but, this loss of workers is because of the good economic news and the low unemployment rates that is occurring throughout the Western United States.

According to a recent report by the AP, unemployment rates have been as low as 2% in specific areas and no higher than a general rate of 3.5 in the North Western states, a rate that has been dropping steadily over the last 15 years since the economic doldrums of the 1980s faded in the area.

Unemployment rates have been as low as 2% this year in places like Montana, and nearly as low in neighboring states. Economists cite such factors as an aging work force and booming tourism economies for the tight labor market.

"This is actually the biggest economic story of our time, and we don't quite grasp it because it is 15 years in the making," said economist Larry Swanson, director of the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.

At this rate, there just isn't anyone to take those McDonald's jobs or other lower skilled labor jobs in the Great American West. For that matter, entry-level jobs in police work and other mid level jobs are difficult to fill and this is causing wages to rise as the labor pool thins even more.

As Mark Knold, of the Utah Department of Workforce Services said to the AP, "The hardest thing is to keep the economy growing at a strong rate when you have a low unemployment rate. Take a company that wants to expand. Where is the next worker going to come from?"

[em2vn]

Why illegal aliens is the answer that Congress failed to see.
I feel a full court press coming to get “W”s dream a reality before he leaves office. The fight against illegals must be maintained.

[Dudoight]

Related article: “One in five homes relies entirely on benefits” (Britain)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=478548&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

[Dixie Yooper]

I think this story has a lot more to do with the dwindling number of people who want to live in the northern states than the nanny state issues.

[DuncanWaring]

I wonder how many able-bodied adults are sitting around collecting a welfare check in these areas.

Probably more than a few.

[alicewonders]

I used to go through the drive-through at McDonalds every morning on my way to work. It was convenient, tasty and I could eat breakfast while driving (I know, not a good idea, but time is precious in the mornings for me) and wasn’t too expensive.

About a year ago, I started noticing “different” people working there. I live in a small town & they were definitely not “local” people, you can tell. The wait in line to get through started getting longer & longer. Many times I would wait in line almost 20 min, or parked over to the side waiting for them to bring my order out (a couple of times, they forgot about me & I had to go in to get my food). Almost every single time they would mess something up in my order.

One day which was extraordinarily slow, I asked the girl working the window what was the hold-up. She said the manager was making the sandwiches today & he wasn’t very good at it.

Finally, I got sick and tired of it & started getting up a little earlier & fixing my own breakfast at home. It was very pleasant and stress-free. I saved money and ate healthier food. I’ve even lost a few pounds.

My feeling is that if you can’t have a drive-thru window without making people wait a long time or get the wrong order - YOU GOT NO BUSINESS HAVING A DRIVE-THRU - that’s the whole point of it, isn’t it? It’s fast & convenient?

If businesses can’t provide this service without having to employ incompetents or illegals to staff it - then we don’t need this service! This is ridiculous! We have got to adjust our lifestyles to eliminate having to do this.

I’m taking a math class & have learned that in equations, if you do something on one side of the equal sign - you have to do something on the other side too. If we’re going to abort our own people - we have to import other people to fill the other side of the equation. This is not a viable answer for us in terms of long-term consequences & disproves the contention that these aborted babies are “not wanted” or “not needed”.

Sorry to go off the subject - but the whole point of this rant is that I will never eat at that McDonalds again - it is a bad experience every time. I have changed my lifestyle to not need to rely on an illegal to prepare my breakfast. I can, and will do this in other areas of my life & I hope everyone else does the same.

It makes no sense whatsoever to have to import people when we can make our own.

[Old_Mil]

In Sidney, Montana the owner of the local McDonald's fast food joint cannot get workers to staff his restaurant.

This is in fact a lie. As long as the unemployment rate in the United States is something higher than 0%, the correct statement is "the owner of the local McDonald's fast food joint cannot get workers to staff his restraurant at the wages he is willing to pay.".

Perhaps things have come to the point where working at a McDonalds carries with it the sort of stigma being a garbage man carries with it. In that case, the employer needs to raise wages to the point that he can overcome that.

That's how "free markets" work...not by having the government subsidize the cost of inputs to artificially keep a business afloat.

[mewzilla]

I think this story has a lot more to do with the dwindling number of people who want to live in the northern states than the nanny state issues.

I live in Upstate NY, where we're bleeding people and jobs. Trust me, it's the same issue :(

[pnh102]

... the correct statement is "the owner of the local McDonald's fast food joint cannot get workers to staff his restraurant at the wages he is willing to pay."

Amen, amen and amen.

We hear this kind of tripe in the tech sector all the time, how no American is willing to work in this industry so they have to offshore jobs. Blah blah blah.

What makes it even funnier for us is that in my industry, some of the world's richest people run the show. It is amusing sometimes, to hear that they cannot pay US workers more money.

[Ace's Dad]

This is in fact a lie. As long as the unemployment rate in the United States is something higher than 0%, the correct statement is "the owner of the local McDonald's fast food joint cannot get workers to staff his restraurant at the wages he is willing to pay.".

Not to argue here, but I have to comment that the published rate is not the true rate, for reasons that have to do the way the statistics are generated. The 2% rate is, in fact, 0%. Way under 0%. One of the problems is the minimum wage and another, as others have suggested, is the lack of anybody to hire.

[upchuck]

Mr. Francis can whine all he wants. The pix at the left shows how a Mickey Dees in Louisiana near, believe it or not, New Orleans, is tackling this problem.

I spoke with the manager of this store and she told me this strategy is working well. They actually get to pick and choose among applicants. By picking the best, training does not take as long, productivity goes up, customers are served faster, word spreads, the store makes more profit and employee retention is better.

Ain't capitalism and the free market grand?

[Dixie Yooper]

I live in Upstate NY, where we're bleeding people and jobs. Trust me, it's the same issue

Big difference living in the Northeast and anywhere along the Canadian border west of Lake Huron where your out in the middle of nowhere. The climate might be the same, but the desolation factor can't be compared. Montana and neighboring states are an area that attract vacationers, not permanent residents. I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Trust me, I know.

[Dixie Yooper]

I had to take a look at just where Sidney, Montana is. 75 miles South of the Canadian border and 5 miles from North Dakota. Hard to believe they ever got a McDonald’s there in the first place.

[Old_Mil]

If in fact there was “nobody to hire”, then this would be a widespread problem. It’s not.

Take, for example, 3M and Costco. Both are within a half hour drive of my home and both regularly get 10-15 applicants for each opening every time they hire.

[Ace's Dad]

Take, for example, 3M and Costco. Both are within a half hour drive of my home and both regularly get 10-15 applicants for each opening every time they hire.

That is because 3M and Costco are a step up the employment ladder from McDonalds, etc.

[Old_Mil]

Precisely. The point being, there’s nothing structural about the American economy that is preventing McDonalds from finding workers, only the fact that they chose to not improve the terms of employment and instead whine about the unfairness of the labor market.