Posted on 07/06/2020 4:41:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
In March, a so-called “drafting error” in the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill led to laid-off workers receiving an extra $600 in federal unemployment benefits on top of the state benefits they were already slated to receive. It was left as-is despite the protests of a few GOP senators, mainly because Schumer & Co. were quick to use the bad optics of seemingly ‘taking money away’ from people purposefully forced out of work to their advantage. Also, outdated and technologically inept state unemployment systems weren’t equipped to handle individual situations, making a one-size-fits-all approach the only way to make sure people were made whole - and then some.
It’s the “and then some,” however, that’s been the rub for at least the past month or more as America tries to get back on its feet. Sure, if the government was going to unjustly take away people’s livelihoods to fight a virus that mostly kills people in nursing homes (without protecting those nursing homes) and has a death rate only slightly higher than the flu, said government certainly has the responsibility to ensure those people don’t go under. But in giving many of them an actual raise, they created a whole other set of problems that are now playing out in factories, restaurants, and thousands of other employers that typically employ a lower-skilled segment of the U.S. population.
As it happens, most people seem to prefer getting paid to do nothing over taking a pay cut to do actual work. Shocker, right? I’m not judging them, because this isn’t a character flaw so much as it’s a feature in humanity. Were I in the same position, and most of us very easily could have been, I might likely feel the same. If the government is going to pay me to landscape my yard and rearrange my basement, I’d probably be all-in too, at least for a time.
But as things have picked up, companies have experienced severe difficulty making the case that workers should come back, ironically resulting in a severe hiring crunch in the midst of one of the greatest economic turbulences in U.S. history. It’s not what you’ll see in the mainstream media, of course, because we’re supposed to be panicking about a coronavirus “case surge” and a cratering economy all the way until the election. Nevertheless, it’s the grim reality these days for countless hiring managers.
As a 20-year staffing industry vet with contacts all across the country, I hear the same story from everyone, whether it’s a factory in southwest Virginia trying to hire assembly workers or a staffing industry in Minnesota hiring forklift drivers for a warehousing client. They all need people, desperately, and they all are having a hard time convincing anybody to come on board. This despite the fact that even with an improved June jobs report there are still tens of millions of people on the unemployment rolls.
Predictably, Democrats want to extend the federal unemployment benefits through - wait for it - January 2021. Now who could have possibly seen this coming? Democrats obviously have a two-staged strategy here. Keep the economy tanked by keeping production low and causing businesses to fail, all the while accustoming Americans to socialism by keeping as many people on the government dole as possible for as long as possible. It’s brilliant, actually, but if Republicans end up falling for it they are signing their own death warrants, not just in November, but in every other coming election. Because once we’ve gone full-socialist, there isn’t any going back, ever.
Thankfully, there are signs that Team McConnell is fighting on this hill. "Unemployment is extremely important. And we need to make sure, for those who are not able to recover their jobs, unemployment is adequate," the Senate majority leader said last week. "That is a different issue from whether we ought to pay people a bonus not to go back to work. And so I think that was a mistake. And we're hearing it all over the country that it's made it harder actually to get people back to work. But to have the basic protections of unemployment insurance is extremely important and should be continued."
NBC confirmed similar sentiments from almost a dozen Republican senators as well as Trump himself, who called it a “disincentive to work.”
“It certainly does not have the backing that it had before because of many small businesses that have come forward and said that people just don't want to come back — that they were making more than they did when they worked,” said Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott said “we’re never going to see our small businesses open” if people are incentivized in such a way indefinitely.
“In interviews with nearly a dozen GOP senators Tuesday, a consistent theme emerged: They are certain they don't want to extend the $600 per week in emergency jobless compensation because they widely agree that it is motivating people to stay out of work,” NBC reported. “But they have little clarity on what ought to replace it.”
Um, here’s a thought. How about replacing it with … nothing? Nothing extra, at least. Regular state unemployment benefits are designed to provide a percentage of wages, not the entire amount, in order to incentivize the recipient to look for work and accept suitable employment when it’s offered. Remove that incentive, and we’re no longer talking about unemployment benefits, but welfare payments.
Were the CARES Act provisions to extend until January the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that “roughly five out of every six recipients would receive benefits that exceeded the weekly amounts they could expect to earn from work during those six months."
"If we fail to renew the $600-per-week increase in UI, millions of American families will have their legs cut out from underneath them at the worst possible time — in the middle of a pandemic when unemployment is higher than it's been since the Great Depression," Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said via statement.
Obviously, not continuing to give laid off workers a raise is hardly cutting “their legs out from underneath them.” Instead, Schumer & Co. are trying to continue to cut the legs out from beneath struggling businesses desperate for workers. In other words, they’d rather stick it to Trump than see America on its feet.
If Republicans give in, it’ll be game over both for Trump and for any hope of keeping a GOP Senate majority.
for what it’s worth, at my company most of us have returned to work.
I have yet to see the ‘stimulus’ loan on my future tax refunds. Only thing I have seen was a letter from DJT telling me I was getting $2,400 for me & the wife.
If they sent it the form of a debit card, my local post office pilfered it.
Austin mayor is pushing for a minimum 35 day complete city wide closure.
Right...the only way I see out of this is to replace it with a single lump sum payment up front - get the money, but then still have incentive to return to work.
the 600 per week is a gimmick that they will use to demand a $15 minimum wage.
600 ÷ 15=40 hours
They may even go so far as to demand a living wage and which would be $2,400 per month.
No reason to get off the couch if 2,3 or 4 people are getting that kind of loot
Did you miss the part where people are getting paid an extra $600 per week on top of their regular unemployment? Bartenders and servers in my area are getting paid the equivalent of roughly $23/hr to stay home. If they go to work, they lose money. That's the whole point of this article. There's incentive not to work even when it is available.
Employers are being told to report people who refuse to come back. Most employers I know...simply won’t. They are taking the stand the job was offered and refused...you’ll be replaced sooner or later.””
I have been a payroll supervisor in the past—with 750 on the weekly payroll.
Those “Employers’ need an education.
They have a responsibility to report a person who refuses to come back to work.
They may still have to replace that employee-—but the EMPLOYER can prevent the bad employee from getting paid when they should NOT be paid unemployment.
So turning them in for turning down work is not going to be good for business or their friendships.”””
I do NOT have friends with those standards.
He’s also a real estate agent during the day and lost 2 deals in April because of the clients’ economic uncertainty due to the virus. There are many ppl whose livelihoods have taken a huge hit from the shutdown through no fault of their own. The govt has no right to decide winners and losers by not allowing ppl to work during this pandemic debacle, and they have an obligation to make those ppl whole by extending the pandemic assistance program.
They may even go so far as to demand a living wage and which would be $2,400 per month.”””
Will that apply to people on Social Security also?
It would mean a 100% increase for me....:) :)
Come on. I know bartenders that pull in 500 dollars or more on weekends. They do t need that little 600 dollars.
Places that are open are allowed to be at 25% capacity. Some places couldn't even reach capacity. (I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago and never saw the city so dead.) Where I live, there is no inside service.
So the point of the article is that the extra $600 per week creates a disincentive to work. I overheard the bartenders in NOLA who returned to work talking about how little they made in tips and that it would have been better to stay home. So I actually heard them say exactly what this article is stating.
Well that’s true right now.
I have a young relative whose income is seasonal, or at least intermittent, and six hundred dollars is not equal to what she earns when allowed to do her work. The whole spectrum of activity that goes on in the spring and early summer. Graduation affairs, prom apparel and other events. Weddings with showers, flowers, gowns and other apparel, and so on. Celebrations and special events, birthdays, births, anniversaries, reunions. Endless occasions for hiring caterers, renting spaces, hiring help for whatever the event. Her small business is herself. She is involved at one time or another in all of the above paying events. This year, she was cut off almost entirely from income for this block of time. Next is the fall with its own calender of celebratory events. She hates being on the dole, loves her job beyond the income. Outgoing and friendly and she has no legal alternative to replacing her income. Those who abuse the free money are not helping to get this economy back on track. The rest deal with their own situation as best they can. They still have the regular bills, mortgage or rent, car payments, doctor and other medical bills, on and on. Families to feed and take care of. Six hundred is not enough for some and way too much for malingers.
For every situation like your husband’s, there are ten scams going. If your job is calling you back to work, you should be required to go or lose your benefits. (How UI is supposed to work)
Holding out to milk the system isn’t right either.
In my husband’s case, the entire restaurant staff has been furloughed, which means they’re planning on bringing them all back when they reopen in November. The casino just reopened for a second time for gaming only and they’ve been contacting the furloughed staff to ask if they wanted to work as a “cleaning specialist” at $12/hr. My husband has been a server in some capacity for over 45 years and makes $30-35/hr on average in the casino steakhouse. He also has an MBA. Not one server took the job. Should they be punished for that? Remember, no one asked for their lives to be upended like this so it’s not the employees’ fault.
Why would they want to be friends any longer with someone like that? Someone that is willing to sit it out to collect more money?
...offer the Republican deal (back-to-work bonus and stimulus checks) and blame the House Democrats more loudly and widely for stalling the bill.
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And the proggies cry crocodile tears: “The GOP cares more about the economy than about people’s LIIIIIIIIIIIIVES.”
They have this down to a science.
...they got cocky that the virus was over.
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NPR (had to) report today that the number of deaths has fallen below the CDC official level for a designated pandemic.
It is over. The media and the DS are simply pimping the wrong numbers, making them large enough to garner attention without any context.
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