https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... efits-myth
‘No one wants to work anymore’: the truth behind this unemployment benefits myth
US employees are concerned about safety, others have caregiving responsibilities and some are using their job loss as an opportunity to find other work
Business owners claim the expanded benefits of $300 a week are keeping people at home instead of behind cash registers and in fast food kitchens.
At restaurants across the country – from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Fort Worth, Texas – the same sign is popping up: “We are short staffed. Please be patient with the staff that did show up. No one wants to work any more.”
The implication is that the federal government’s expanded unemployment benefits of $300 each week are keeping people at home instead of behind cash registers and in fast-food kitchens.
It’s a concern shared by independent business owners in interviews with local and national media, worried that their efforts to bump wages and increase benefits aren’t luring in the workers they need as Covid-19 restrictions fall and consumer spending soars.
Unfortunately for them, what’s happening is a feature, not a bug, of the US economic system and the blame can’t entirely be placed on a $300 weekly check.
The University of Pennsylvania economist Ioana Marinescu said: “In the absence of the benefits there would probably be a little bit more applications and hiring would be a little bit easier, but the main drive of the recent change in sentiment is that hiring is accelerating.”
Job openings rose to a two-year high in February, according to the US Labor Department’s job openings and labor turnover survey published last month. And in March, employers added nearly 1 million new jobs, with many economists expecting similar or better gains in the April jobs report on Friday.
If job openings accelerate faster than people apply for work, there will be pain for business owners. The pandemic has added some quirks to this economic reality.
It is true that a sliver of people would rather stay home for a few months making as much, or more, from unemployment than they would defrosting meat patties or answering phones.
But would-be employees are also concerned about safety - 46% of the population hasn’t received a single vaccine dose and the spread of Covid-19 is uncontrolled in the US. Potential employees also have caregiving responsibilities: this recession has disproportionately affected women, who largely take up these duties and in late March more than half of schools were still doing remote learning or a combination of remote and in-person classes.
Others, like LaShanta Knowles in Cleveland, Ohio, are using their job loss as an opportunity to do something different.
Until September, Knowles had worked the same job at a relocation services company for seven years, unhappy and unsupported, only ever receiving attention for doing things wrong.
“I stayed out of comfort and out of fear if this job didn’t want me, I didn’t think anyone else would,” Knowles said. “Luckily, I don’t feel that way any more since I went back to school.”
This month, Knowles will receive a certification in web programming and development. Even with the unemployment, the financial situation has been tough, in part because Ohio has been inconsistent with unemployment payments.
This is a problem facing millions across the country because the benefit system is unequipped to respond to this recession. It’s been such an issue that the not-for-profit Ohio Organizing Collaborative stepped in to help people like Knowles navigate the system and invite them to take action to call for something better. And momentum is picking up to consider a national unemployment reform.