Will the labor shortage now end? Millions of Americans Set to Lose Pandemic Unemployment Benefits Next Week, No Signs of States Extending

[sealybobo]

What property moron. If all you make is 400 bucks you DON'T HAVE property. On the other hand, if you WORK, you can eventually buy some property. You losers are all the same.

My brother has property and there's always state land that's like 10 minutes from my home. The point is you and I wouldn't go back to work if we were collecting $350 a week sitting home vs go back for $400 a week.

You are just lying to yourself. I've seen wayyyyy toooo many of you conservatives be hypocrites when it happens to you. From not being property insured to staying on unemployment rather than work. You justify. You say things like, "I paid in to the system I deserve it. Many people who don't deserve it take advantage, I deserve it, I'm going to......" You're hypocrites and liars. You talk from your comfort zone. Take you out of your comfort zone, you sing a completely different tune.

I'll actually prove to you right now that Republicans are full of shit on this. Many of you who have never lost a job say, "I would never take unemployment money. I'd get a job first". BULLSHIT. I make $100K. Well almost. If I lost my job today, I'd go on unemployment. And so would you. But what about the McD down the street hiring? No one who makes the kind of money I make gives up the 5 weeks of unemployment checks to go work for McD. NO ONE! Why? Because you need that time to look for another job.

 

[sealybobo]

You know, I am not really buying that personal responsibility bullshit from Republicans anymore. Cry to the government to remedy your irresponsible decisions? If you are an American in Afghanistan you had more than a years notice of the withdrawal. The set date was pushed ahead, TWICE. It was not May 31, it became August 31. But your ass is still there, and Republicans now expect the government to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fly them out, let alone put the lives of our members in the Armed forces at risk. Like the my body my decision bullshit, you Republicans are a bunch of hypocritical dumbfawks.

My brother, who leans right, was explaining why Republicans fake outrage at the exiting of Afghanistan is laughable. Trump would have experienced the same things had he been president and withdrew from Afghanistan.

And I'll be honest. I would have criticized him for the sloppy exit. Leaving tanks and guns there. It wasn't a perfect exit strategy but guess what? We're out.

We gave so many Americans unemployment during Covid. So much $ in stimulus checks. We can't afford to be fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq.

 

[SweetTea]

My brother has property and there's always state land that's like 10 minutes from my home. The point is you and I wouldn't go back to work if we were collecting $350 a week sitting home vs go back for $400 a week.

You are just lying to yourself. I've seen wayyyyy toooo many of you conservatives be hypocrites when it happens to you. From not being property insured to staying on unemployment rather than work. You justify. You say things like, "I paid in to the system I deserve it. Many people who don't deserve it take advantage, I deserve it, I'm going to......" You're hypocrites and liars. You talk from your comfort zone. Take you out of your comfort zone, you sing a completely different tune.

I'll actually prove to you right now that Republicans are full of shit on this. Many of you who have never lost a job say, "I would never take unemployment money. I'd get a job first". BULLSHIT. I make $100K. Well almost. If I lost my job today, I'd go on unemployment. And so would you. But what about the McD down the street hiring? No one who makes the kind of money I make gives up the 5 weeks of unemployment checks to go work for McD. NO ONE! Why? Because you need that time to look for another job.

Unemployment is much more attractive for those making less money. In the case of pandemic unemployment, many lower wage earners are/were making more money staying home than working. Seeing as it is a known fact that lower wage workers vote Democratic, it stands to reason that more are taking advantage of the situation. If unemployment were higher, many Republicans may do the same. The real issue here is that we should not be paying that much money when there are so many jobs available, particularly lower paying jobs that are equivalent to or even slightly higher than pandemic unemployment.

 

[SweetTea]

Trump would have experienced the same things had he been president and withdrew from Afghanistan.

I disagree. There were many ways this could have been accomplished that would have been much smoother. Biden did about as bad as possible.

 

[sealybobo]

Unemployment is much more attractive for those making less money. In the case of pandemic unemployment, many lower wage earners are/were making more money staying home than working. Seeing as it is a known fact that lower wage workers vote Democratic, it stands to reason that more are taking advantage of the situation. If unemployment were higher, many Republicans may do the same. The real issue here is that we should not be paying that much money when there are so many jobs available, particularly lower paying jobs that are equivalent to or even slightly higher than pandemic unemployment.

I remember I lost a job and I got the max $750 a week. I think a person making $10 hr should get less than $5 hr on unemployment. You know what I mean? The money I was getting wasn't enough. It's not supposed to be. Supposed to help get you by while looking for another job. I went from making $2000 a week to $750 a week. So a person making $10 hr should only get something like $3 or $4 hr unemployment.

 

[sealybobo]

I disagree. There were many ways this could have been accomplished that would have been much smoother. Biden did about as bad as possible.

Of course that's your Republican position on it. But trust me, if Trump were POTUS and it happened the exact same way, you would feel differently.

 

[Winston]

I remember I lost a job and I got the max $750 a week. I think a person making $10 hr should get less than $5 hr on unemployment. You know what I mean? The money I was getting wasn't enough. It's not supposed to be. Supposed to help get you by while looking for another job. I went from making $2000 a week to $750 a week. So a person making $10 hr should only get something like $3 or $4 hr unemployment.

That is the way the system works. What you draw from unemployment is based on your income at the last job you had. The perceived problem here is that the federal government provided a supplemental unemployment benefit because of the Covid pandemic. That made sense, when the Covid pandemic hit there were not that many jobs available for those at the low end of the income scale, like service workers. And it paid off, those supplemental payments kept the economy afloat. It was a unique time in the history of the country, while unemployment was at record levels, personal income was also at record levels thanks to those government payments.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Unemployment is much more attractive for those making less money. In the case of pandemic unemployment, many lower wage earners are/were making more money staying home than working. Seeing as it is a known fact that lower wage workers vote Democratic, it stands to reason that more are taking advantage of the situation. If unemployment were higher, many Republicans may do the same. The real issue here is that we should not be paying that much money when there are so many jobs available, particularly lower paying jobs that are equivalent to or even slightly higher than pandemic unemployment.

The ploy behind this idiocy was that if we didn't have enough workers to do the jobs, it's a great excuse for having all these illegals here by the Democrats. How many times in the past have they used that lie we need immigrants to do the jobs Americans won't do? By making things worse (yes it was deliberate) it would put that lie on steroids.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

My brother, who leans right, was explaining why Republicans fake outrage at the exiting of Afghanistan is laughable. Trump would have experienced the same things had he been president and withdrew from Afghanistan.

And I'll be honest. I would have criticized him for the sloppy exit. Leaving tanks and guns there. It wasn't a perfect exit strategy but guess what? We're out.

We gave so many Americans unemployment during Covid. So much $ in stimulus checks. We can't afford to be fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq.

You can put a band-aid on that severed arm all you want, but no, Trump would have never did anything like what Dementia did. Trump would have gotten all Americans out first. Trump would have gotten all our Afghan help out second. Trump would have gotten all our military equipment out third. Then our military would have came home.

I swear only a Democrat can look into the eyes of Jesus and lie to his face. Trying to make this dementia patient look good by saying it would have ended the same way under President Trump is the largest pile of bullshit you leftists have come up with in years. Dementia created the strongest military fundamentalist group in the entire world and you say "so what?"

 

[Dragonlady]

You leftists are completely ignorant of economics. You cannot raise the rate for one group of people; not even the 3.5% of our labor workforce that make minimum wage without it having a domino effect. When the domino effect takes place, the cost of everything increases because everybody is going to make more money. In a year or so after it makes a complete circle, that minimum wage worker that used to make $7.50 per hour is no better off making $15.00 an hour because everything costs so much more.

The only real results are that we increase inflation and the cost of living. That makes automation, outsourcing and leaving the country to produce much more attractive to industry. In other words, all that could come of doubling the minimum wage is we lose a lot more jobs.

Yet another Republican bullshit talking point with no basis in reality. How come these companies could afford to raise "executive compensation" more than 1000% during the same time frame that worker wages were going backwards????

Companies have absorbed increased costs in materials, supplies, insurance, transportation, utilities, furniture, and fixtures over the past 40 years. They have increased executive compensation by over 1000%, and middle class wages have increased. The ONLY group of Americans not to get a raise in the past 40 years, are hourly rated workers.

Now I would have some sympathy for this whole "think of the inflation" bullshit, if all of these big multi-national companies, who claim they cannot possibly afford to pay living wages to Americans, are actually paying a living wage to their workers in other countries. McDonalds, Walmart and other American minimum wage companies pay their employees in Canada $15 per hour and the prices Canadians pay for McDonalds products are no different than American prices.

Walmart even manages to be the most profitable company in Canada paying those wages too.

 

[Dragonlady]

The ploy behind this idiocy was that if we didn't have enough workers to do the jobs, it's a great excuse for having all these illegals here by the Democrats. How many times in the past have they used that lie we need immigrants to do the jobs Americans won't do? By making things worse (yes it was deliberate) it would put that lie on steroids.

It's not Democrats that keep trying to import illegals. Illegal immigration goes down when a Democrat is in the White House, and up when Republicans put out the for hire signs.

Democrats prosecute Republican employers of illegal immigrants. Republicans refuse to prosecute employers, so the employers put out the "for hire" signs and the illegals rush to fill the jobs.

In 2019, illegal immigration went up so much after Trump stopped all prosecutions of companies hiring illegals. Obama got more than 450 court supervision orders in the first year of his Presidency. Trump prosecuted 1 employer in 4 years.

Bill Clinton holds the record for the most employer supervision orders ever by a President. W didn't prosecute any company employing illegals.

Like everything else Republicans lie about, Republicans make a big show of catching and jailing illegals, but Democrats catch illegals and send them back. They're not paying for profit prison companies $700 a day to hold illegal border crossers, they're sending them right back. Cost free.

Trump was holding 40,000 people in custody at YOUR expense.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

It's not Democrats that keep trying to import illegals. Illegal immigration goes down when a Democrat is in the White House, and up when Republicans put out the for hire signs.

Democrats prosecute Republican employers of illegal immigrants. Republicans refuse to prosecute employers, so the employers put out the "for hire" signs and the illegals rush to fill the jobs.

In 2019, illegal immigration went up so much after Trump stopped all prosecutions of companies hiring illegals. Obama got more than 450 court supervision orders in the first year of his Presidency. Trump prosecuted 1 employer in 4 years.

Bill Clinton holds the record for the most employer supervision orders ever by a President. W didn't prosecute any company employing illegals.

Like everything else Republicans lie about, Republicans make a big show of catching and jailing illegals, but Democrats catch illegals and send them back. They're not paying for profit prison companies $700 a day to hold illegal border crossers, they're sending them right back. Cost free.

Trump was holding 40,000 people in custody at YOUR expense.

Dragon, you make shit up as you go along, don't you? You think you're not going to get called out on it? First of all under President Trump, illegal immigration went down 90% in 2019. It was the commies who fought every single one of his measures, and what they couldn't fight in Congress, they had their commie judges stop him......at least temporarily until Trump ultimately won.

Republican businesses? Have any link to that? How did Biden and Hillary raise record amounts of money for their campaigns, the homeless? Most of the wealthiest people in our country are Democrats. It's an old wives tale that businesses in this country are all Republican. If anything, it's quite the opposite. Oh, and Presidents don't prosecute anybody. That's up to the DOJ which Trump doesn't control.

Trump’s plan to stem border crossings gets results

Border arrests are plummeting after Trump crackdown.

www.politico.com

Trump immigration policies showing results, with illegal border crossings plummeting

Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted after the Trump administration required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S., according to a report.

www.foxnews.com

Republicans introduce bill to pull funds from states that give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants

Republicans in the House and the Senate are introducing legislation that would block federal funds from states that allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses -- the latest move in an escalating fight over “sanctuary” laws.

www.foxnews.com

Do ICE raids work? Why aren't companies being prosecuted? It's complicated: Today's talker

Just hiring unauthorized immigrants isn't enough for companies to be prosecuted, and just arresting migrants isn't enough to end illegal immigration.

www.usatoday.com

Major Raids of the Trump Presidency - America's Voice

A comprehensive list of the workplace and community-based immigration raids of the Trump Administration so far, and how they are separating families

americasvoice.org

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Yet another Republican bullshit talking point with no basis in reality. How come these companies could afford to raise "executive compensation" more than 1000% during the same time frame that worker wages were going backwards????

Companies have absorbed increased costs in materials, supplies, insurance, transportation, utilities, furniture, and fixtures over the past 40 years. They have increased executive compensation by over 1000%, and middle class wages have increased. The ONLY group of Americans not to get a raise in the past 40 years, are hourly rated workers.

Now I would have some sympathy for this whole "think of the inflation" bullshit, if all of these big multi-national companies, who claim they cannot possibly afford to pay living wages to Americans, are actually paying a living wage to their workers in other countries. McDonalds, Walmart and other American minimum wage companies pay their employees in Canada $15 per hour and the prices Canadians pay for McDonalds products are no different than American prices.

Walmart even manages to be the most profitable company in Canada paying those wages too.

And I'd be willing to bet you pay more for Walmart goods than here in the US.

Workers get paid what the company believes they are worth. It works that way on the corporate level and it works that way on the floor end. If you don't want to pay a high-end executive 2 million dollars a year, your competition will, and end up burying your company with the experience and skills that top executive brings with him or her.

Companies don't absorb the cost of anything. Taxes, increase pay, new regulations all get passed down to the little guy. The big guy never loses a dime. We don't have a living wage now and never have. When I went into the workforce in the late 70's, nobody could afford a house or apartment on minimum wage, and they certainly couldn't raise a family on it unless the mother lived with her parents in the basement. It's the same way today.

 

[Dragonlady]

And I'd be willing to bet you pay more for Walmart goods than here in the US.

Workers get paid what the company believes they are worth. It works that way on the corporate level and it works that way on the floor end. If you don't want to pay a high-end executive 2 million dollars a year, your competition will, and end up burying your company with the experience and skills that top executive brings with him or her.

Companies don't absorb the cost of anything. Taxes, increase pay, new regulations all get passed down to the little guy. The big guy never loses a dime. We don't have a living wage now and never have. When I went into the workforce in the late 70's, nobody could afford a house or apartment on minimum wage, and they certainly couldn't raise a family on it unless the mother lived with her parents in the basement. It's the same way today.

Workers get paid the least amount of money that the company can get by with paying them. Large corporations don't care what you're worth, they care about the bottom line. The bank I worked for sent out a Memo that wages being paid throughout the division were too high. We were to promote people to higher positions so their salaries were lower in relation to the base salary for the job, failing which we should endeavor to encourage them to leave the bank. This was at a time when our bank was rated #1 in Canada in terms of our performance, and making headlines as the best run bank in Canada.

In order to get higher wages, you had to have an above competent rating and more than 3 years experience. Their bosses thought these were exception employees, head office thought they were overpaid. So much for getting paid what you're worth. And trying to force out your best employees to improve your bottom line doesn't sound very cost effective to me.

Every time a company wants to improve their bottom line, one of the first things they do is to cut their highest priced workers, and replacing them someone younger and a whole lot cheaper. And that is exactly what happened to YOU.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Workers get paid the least amount of money that the company can get by with paying them. Large corporations don't care what you're worth, they care about the bottom line. The bank I worked for sent out a Memo that wages being paid throughout the division were too high. We were to promote people to higher positions so their salaries were lower in relation to the base salary for the job, failing which we should endeavor to encourage them to leave the bank. This was at a time when our bank was rated #1 in Canada in terms of our performance, and making headlines as the best run bank in Canada.

In order to get higher wages, you had to have an above competent rating and more than 3 years experience. Their bosses thought these were exception employees, head office thought they were overpaid. So much for getting paid what you're worth. And trying to force out your best employees to improve your bottom line doesn't sound very cost effective to me.

Every time a company wants to improve their bottom line, one of the first things they do is to cut their highest priced workers, and replacing them someone younger and a whole lot cheaper. And that is exactly what happened to YOU.

What an employee is worth is a simple calculation: You are worth only as much as your employer could pay somebody else to do the same job and same quality of work as you do. That's it and nothing more.

If you make 20.00 an hour running a drill press, demand a raise, quit when you don't get one and your employer finds somebody else to do the same job you did for the same money, all you were worth was what the employer was paying. If your former employer can't find anybody to do your job for $20.00 an hour and has to offer more, you were correct for leaving because you were being underpaid for your job. If your employer can hire somebody for $18.00 an hour, then you were wrong for leaving because you were being overpaid.

Find me an employee that says they are paid enough for the job they do, and I'll find you an honest liberal. We all think we are worth more money, but that's not the case.

Under normal circumstances, it's a perfect system, but some people want to screw around with this system. So they brought in unions years ago, increased minimum wage, now bringing in illegals to do these jobs. Anytime you screw with the system, you are throwing a monkey wrench in the works and it just clogs the machine.

 

[Dragonlady]

What an employee is worth is a simple calculation: You are worth only as much as your employer could pay somebody else to do the same job and same quality of work as you do. That's it and nothing more.

If you make 20.00 an hour running a drill press, demand a raise, quit when you don't get one and your employer finds somebody else to do the same job you did for the same money, all you were worth was what the employer was paying. If your former employer can't find anybody to do your job for $20.00 an hour and has to offer more, you were correct for leaving because you were being underpaid for your job. If your employer can hire somebody for $18.00 an hour, then you were wrong for leaving because you were being overpaid.

Find me an employee that says they are paid enough for the job they do, and I'll find you an honest liberal. We all think we are worth more money, but that's not the case.

Under normal circumstances, it's a perfect system, but some people want to screw around with this system. So they brought in unions years ago, increased minimum wage, now bringing in illegals to do these jobs. Anytime you screw with the system, you are throwing a monkey wrench in the works and it just clogs the machine.

Your whole post is conservative bullshit. Every industry has a standard set of costs of to produce their goods and services.

Wages, as a percentage of costs, has been falling ever since Reagan changed the tax code. Your entire tax code now rewards wealth over work. It didn't used to be like that but every tax cut that Republicans have given to the top, have increased their share of wealth and income.

Wages, as a percentage of costs, are at the same level they were in the 1800's Ray.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Your whole post is conservative bullshit. Every industry has a standard set of costs of to produce their goods and services.

Wages, as a percentage of costs, has been falling ever since Reagan changed the tax code. Your entire tax code now rewards wealth over work. It didn't used to be like that but every tax cut that Republicans have given to the top, have increased their share of wealth and income.

Wages, as a percentage of costs, are at the same level they were in the 1800's Ray.

Nobody ever got rich (or richer) over tax structure. What happened in the early 80's is that after the recession, American consumers became very frugal. The theme at the time was Buy American or Bye Bye America which nobody really bought since it was basically a union slogan and they were only looking out for their own asses.

Discount stores started to open, more Chinese goods were on the shelves, self-service gasoline got so popular with the public that not long after, all service stations became self-serve. Americans were more concerned about saving money than anything else.

Reagan (seeing this was a dangerous trend) decided to lower tax rates to keep our industry in this country so the remaining did not follow the many others who left because of unions, taxation and costly regulations. It worked too.

Since then we had two terms of Clinton (one term with a Democrat Congress) and two terms of DumBama (again, one with a Democrat Congress). So the question is, if what Reagan did was so wrong, why didn't they simply reverse what Reagan did? Even today the commies hold all the cards. Why isn't Dementia or Piglosi putting forth a bill to tax the hell out of our job creators like they did before Reagan? I don't think I need to give you an answer to that one.

Besides the tax cuts, industry could no longer pay people 50K a year to turn nuts onto bolts, or ride around on a floor sweeper all day. Foreign competition was just too much, and with the disappearing unions, wages fell to what people were actually worth to a company.

Fast forward to today, and decent paying jobs are still out there, just not for non-skilled labor. There are many blue-collar jobs that pay a livable wage, but these jobs are all skilled blue-collar labor, not non-skilled. We also have a huge drug problem in our country. Druggies stay with low paying jobs because they don't drug test, and parents are letting their children stay with them well into their 30's and sometimes 40's.

 

[sealybobo]

Time to get back to work instead of coddle and become addicted to the government role.

Turns out Republicans were wrong.

One of the biggest economic arguments this year was over whether extra unemployment benefits made it impossible for employers to hire.
Republican governors cut the federal compensation early, and Democrats made no effort to keep the benefits in place, even though they didn’t agree that the money hurt hiring.

But the past several months have strongly suggested that the extra jobless pay wasn’t holding back hiring after all. The federal benefits fully expired early in September — and instead of surging, job growth slowed dramatically that month.
Meanwhile, there remain an unprecedented 10 million job openings, and some businesses still complain they can’t find workers. What’s going on?

Federal Unemployment Benefits Are Gone. Businesses Still Say They Can't Find Workers.

The coronavirus pandemic is still roiling the economy as some workers hesitate to fill available jobs.

www.huffpost.com

More than 3 million people avoided work out of fear of catching COVID-19 in September, roughly the same number who avoided work for that reason back in June, before the delta variant had taken off. But 4 million said they were sick with the disease or caring for someone who was, up from 1.7 million in June, according to an analysis of federal survey data by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
“There is a long list of reasons why it has been difficult for businesses to fill the record number of open positions, and while the extra unemployment insurance benefits is on the list, it is towards the bottom,” Zandi said in an email. “Sick workers and fear of getting sick are at the top of the list.”

For more than a year, Republicans have decried the federal unemployment benefits as employment killers. Those benefits were first approved by both Republicans and Democrats under former President Donald Trump at $600 per week, and then again at $300 per week, in 2020.
Republicans escalated their complaints once President Joe Biden was in office, claiming that Democrats were paying people not to work and causing a widespread labor shortage. Democrats extended the $300 per week federal unemployment benefit, paid out on top of state unemployment benefits, through the beginning of September in the American Rescue Plan, the multitrillion COVID-19 relief bill passed in March.
“We shouldn’t have policies in place that disincentivize people from returning to the workforce,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said at the time.
That sentiment was echoed by Republicans all summer.
Their claims were backed anecdotally by restaurant and hospitality-sector business owners who were finding it difficult to hire workers, even as businesses began to open up. Republican governors across the country cut federal unemployment benefits short over the summer, refusing to use the funds approved by Congress and arguing that the cutoff would push people back to work and put an end to the labor shortage.
But the states that cut benefits didn’t see stronger job gains than the states that didn’t. And now that the benefits have fully expired, the latest data from the U.S. Labor Department showed weaker hiring and little change in the labor participation rate.

 

[bendog]

Turns out Republicans were wrong.

One of the biggest economic arguments this year was over whether extra unemployment benefits made it impossible for employers to hire.
Republican governors cut the federal compensation early, and Democrats made no effort to keep the benefits in place, even though they didn’t agree that the money hurt hiring.

But the past several months have strongly suggested that the extra jobless pay wasn’t holding back hiring after all. The federal benefits fully expired early in September — and instead of surging, job growth slowed dramatically that month.
Meanwhile, there remain an unprecedented 10 million job openings, and some businesses still complain they can’t find workers. What’s going on?

Federal Unemployment Benefits Are Gone. Businesses Still Say They Can't Find Workers.

The coronavirus pandemic is still roiling the economy as some workers hesitate to fill available jobs.

www.huffpost.com

More than 3 million people avoided work out of fear of catching COVID-19 in September, roughly the same number who avoided work for that reason back in June, before the delta variant had taken off. But 4 million said they were sick with the disease or caring for someone who was, up from 1.7 million in June, according to an analysis of federal survey data by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
“There is a long list of reasons why it has been difficult for businesses to fill the record number of open positions, and while the extra unemployment insurance benefits is on the list, it is towards the bottom,” Zandi said in an email. “Sick workers and fear of getting sick are at the top of the list.”

For more than a year, Republicans have decried the federal unemployment benefits as employment killers. Those benefits were first approved by both Republicans and Democrats under former President Donald Trump at $600 per week, and then again at $300 per week, in 2020.
Republicans escalated their complaints once President Joe Biden was in office, claiming that Democrats were paying people not to work and causing a widespread labor shortage. Democrats extended the $300 per week federal unemployment benefit, paid out on top of state unemployment benefits, through the beginning of September in the American Rescue Plan, the multitrillion COVID-19 relief bill passed in March.
“We shouldn’t have policies in place that disincentivize people from returning to the workforce,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said at the time.
That sentiment was echoed by Republicans all summer.
Their claims were backed anecdotally by restaurant and hospitality-sector business owners who were finding it difficult to hire workers, even as businesses began to open up. Republican governors across the country cut federal unemployment benefits short over the summer, refusing to use the funds approved by Congress and arguing that the cutoff would push people back to work and put an end to the labor shortage.
But the states that cut benefits didn’t see stronger job gains than the states that didn’t. And now that the benefits have fully expired, the latest data from the U.S. Labor Department showed weaker hiring and little change in the labor participation rate.

Only half of the people who lost jobs during COVID are going back to work

Millions of Americans aren't returning to work, JPMorgan found. Some are worried about childcare, others expect more out of a job than they used to.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Turns out Republicans were wrong.

One of the biggest economic arguments this year was over whether extra unemployment benefits made it impossible for employers to hire.
Republican governors cut the federal compensation early, and Democrats made no effort to keep the benefits in place, even though they didn’t agree that the money hurt hiring.

But the past several months have strongly suggested that the extra jobless pay wasn’t holding back hiring after all. The federal benefits fully expired early in September — and instead of surging, job growth slowed dramatically that month.
Meanwhile, there remain an unprecedented 10 million job openings, and some businesses still complain they can’t find workers. What’s going on?

Federal Unemployment Benefits Are Gone. Businesses Still Say They Can't Find Workers.

The coronavirus pandemic is still roiling the economy as some workers hesitate to fill available jobs.

www.huffpost.com

More than 3 million people avoided work out of fear of catching COVID-19 in September, roughly the same number who avoided work for that reason back in June, before the delta variant had taken off. But 4 million said they were sick with the disease or caring for someone who was, up from 1.7 million in June, according to an analysis of federal survey data by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
“There is a long list of reasons why it has been difficult for businesses to fill the record number of open positions, and while the extra unemployment insurance benefits is on the list, it is towards the bottom,” Zandi said in an email. “Sick workers and fear of getting sick are at the top of the list.”

For more than a year, Republicans have decried the federal unemployment benefits as employment killers. Those benefits were first approved by both Republicans and Democrats under former President Donald Trump at $600 per week, and then again at $300 per week, in 2020.
Republicans escalated their complaints once President Joe Biden was in office, claiming that Democrats were paying people not to work and causing a widespread labor shortage. Democrats extended the $300 per week federal unemployment benefit, paid out on top of state unemployment benefits, through the beginning of September in the American Rescue Plan, the multitrillion COVID-19 relief bill passed in March.
“We shouldn’t have policies in place that disincentivize people from returning to the workforce,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said at the time.
That sentiment was echoed by Republicans all summer.
Their claims were backed anecdotally by restaurant and hospitality-sector business owners who were finding it difficult to hire workers, even as businesses began to open up. Republican governors across the country cut federal unemployment benefits short over the summer, refusing to use the funds approved by Congress and arguing that the cutoff would push people back to work and put an end to the labor shortage.
But the states that cut benefits didn’t see stronger job gains than the states that didn’t. And now that the benefits have fully expired, the latest data from the U.S. Labor Department showed weaker hiring and little change in the labor participation rate.

That still doesn't explain how people are not working and able to survive. In our state they estimated that with state and fed unemployment, people were receiving the equivalent to a working person making 57K a year when you consider the taxes people on unemployment don't have to pay.

A theory I have is that people made so much money while on unemployment, when the fed ended theirs, they were able to live comfortably on state unemployment and the money they saved up. Remember too that service sector jobs are mostly kids work who don't have a lot of expenses living at home. They can sit in the basement for many more months smoking pot and playing video games.

So one way or another, we need to rectify this problem. I proposed the idea that if paying people to stay home caused the supply shortage, then maybe paying people to get a job might reverse the damage, say after getting a job and working for a few months, you get a government stimulus check for $1,500. Would that work? I don't know.

How about another stimulus check to fix the problems Biden created?

Yes, that's what I said, another stimulus check. It seems to me that the problem started when Dementia and the Democrats decided to pay people to stay home. Many were making more money not working than working. The government goodies stopped a month ago, and our people getting jobs didn't...

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