Opinion

COMMENTARY: A sign of self-preservation

Unemployment checks not keeping workers from jobs

Last week's U.S. jobs report, which saw far fewer hires than expected, reignited an old, long-simmering debate about whether the social safety net creates a culture of dependence in American life. Too many American workers, the argument goes, would rather stay home, play video games and collect unemployment than go back to work.

"The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market," Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said last week. "We need a comprehensive approach to dealing with our workforce issues and the very real threat unfilled positions pose to our economic recovery from the pandemic."

This is more than just a pro-business lobby spouting a pro-business line. Late last month, Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., tweeted an image of a Hardee's restaurant that had apparently closed because of a staffing shortage. "This is what happens when you extend unemployment benefits for too long and add a $1400 stimulus payment to it," Rouzer wrote. "Right when employers need workers to fully open back up, few can be found." Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy was a bit less subtle, tweeting that Democrats "have demonized work so Americans would become dependent on big government."

The main problem with this line of thinking is that it simply isn't true and, perhaps, holds less water than it ever has. In the past year alone, study after study has debunked the myth that the emergency benefits and occasional stimuluses provided by the government are disincentivizing people from returning to the labor force en masse. "We find no evidence that high UI [unemployment insurance] replacement rates drove job losses or slowed rehiring," read one study by Yale economists last summer, back when enhanced federal unemployment benefits were $600 a week - or double the current amount. In a separate study of unemployed workers without a college degree last year, Arindrajit Dube at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, found no evidence that the additional pandemic compensation passed under the Cares Act last year "held back the labor market recovery."

Then there is the reality that, even with help from the government, a large segment of jobless Americans aren't receiving enough money from unemployment benefits to actually get by. According to a Census Bureau survey last month, nearly one in three Americans on unemployment said they were still failing to cover routine expenses such as food, housing and medical treatments. That's not to say the rest of those on pandemic assistance rolls are coasting either. Of the recipients of jobless benefits with children, roughly 75% reported not having enough food for their children either sometimes or often. Meanwhile, despite the highly meme-able frivolity associated with stimulus payments on social media, a study of how Americans spent the first stimulus by the Federal Reserve of New York revealed that only 29% of payments went toward consumption while the rest either went directly into debt repayment or savings.

It's an all-time understatement to say the professional lives of service workers and retail employees grew exponentially less sustainable during the past year. Across the country, hourly workers have been tasked with enforcing mask mandates and have been attacked, harassed, and even shot at for protecting themselves and other customers from a public health crisis. (Back in August, Illinois took the extraordinary step of passing a law that would make it a felony for someone to assault a worker for enforcing a mask policy.) Workers have labored long hours through supply shortages and shifting and often lax safety protocols, often without hazard pay or basic benefits like sick leave or health insurance, all in the middle of a pandemic.

As the country slowly begins to reopen, workers shouldn't be shamed or punished for not returning to industries that haven't materially improved work conditions from their pre-pandemic standards. A glut of low-wage job openings isn't a sign of American laziness; it's a sign of self-preservation. And it's a clear signal that businesses need to make jobs more attractive, especially after a year in which 90% of the biggest American companies turned a profit while over half of the same companies laid tens of thousands workers off.

Of course, the irony is that so many of these front-line jobs just months ago were being heralded as "heroic" and "essential." It's more than past time for employers to treat them that way.

Upcoming Events