The U.S. Doesn't Have a Labor Shortage. It Has an Incentive Shortage.
The government's coronavirus-related unemployment benefits are encouraging some to stay unemployed.
America has a record 8.1 million job openings.
The media call it a "labor shortage."
But it's not a labor shortage; it's an incentive shortage.
"No one wants to work," says a sign on a restaurant drive-thru speaker in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "Please be patient with the staff that did show up."
I never wanted to work. I got a job because I had to support myself. That was good for me. It forced me out of my comfort zone. It made me a better person.
Had government offered me almost equal money not to work, I never would have applied.
Today, government takes away that incentive.
The American Rescue Plan, passed in March, increased unemployment payments by hundreds of dollars and extended them for up to 73 weeks. Given the cost of commuting, etc., many people find they are better off financially not working.
Denmark once offered workers five years of unemployment. Then they noticed that workers found work after exactly five years. So, Denmark cut the benefit to four years. Then most workers found jobs after four years. Now Denmark, wisely, has cut benefits in half.
Incentives matter.
America's unemployment handouts began during the Great Depression when desperate people really needed help. Still, you could collect for only 16 weeks.
Former President Barack Obama extended unemployment benefits to up to 99 weeks.
"There are no jobs!" people I interviewed waiting in line for benefits in New York City once told me.
But that wasn't true. There were lots of entry-level jobs within walking distance.
My staff visited 79 nearby stores. Forty said they wanted to hire. Twenty-four said they'd hire people with no experience.
People in the unemployment line also said that the government should do more to train them for jobs. But New York already offered "job training" centers, so I sent an intern out to see what they did. The first offered to help her get welfare. A second told her to apply for unemployment. Neither place suggested looking for a job.
When she insisted that she wanted work, not handouts, they directed her to yet another building. There she was told she could not receive help because she didn't have a college degree.
Finally, a fourth office offered her an interview at the sandwich chain Pret a Manger. The boss there told her she'd wasted her time going to the government Jobs Center because she could have gotten that same interview using Craigslist.
Some politicians understand that handouts encourage dependence. Sixteen states are now ending extra unemployment benefits early. Montana and Arizona replaced extra unemployment benefits with a bonus for people who find work.
Even President Joe Biden has noticed the unintended consequences of his party's benefits. "If you're…offered a suitable job, you can't refuse that job and just keep getting unemployment," he said.
Seems more than reasonable. Yet a New York Times headline says, "Some say it presents an undue hardship."
The reporter interviewed a "Mx. San Martin, 27, who uses the pronouns they and them."
Mx. Martin wants to work with pets. They complained that "there simply weren't enough jobs that I would actually want." Restaurant work "is not in my field of interest."
Too bad.
Bad for all of us when people think they're entitled to our tax money if bureaucrats don't get them the exact job they want.
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Ha ha! Can’t wait to hear all the wailing when the money runs out.
Is their an ink or cotton shortage?
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I’m nearly convinced that they will cut off the money before it’s supposed to expire in September. Then you’ll have Biden & the Ds promising free money and then yanking it away. That will not go over well.
Absolutely there is an incentive shortage. The people who are screaming the most about not having employees are the ones who don’t pay enough to live on and who endanger their employees’ lives. Who would want to work under those conditions? Why suffer to make someone else rich?
On the other hand, employers who pay livable wages and who insist that their customers wear masks have no problem finding help. Funny how those incentives work.
I agree with this completely. The issue isn’t an incentive issue, its a pay issue. The incentive isn’t even a living wage. If that’s higher than what is being offered, then THAT is where is issue is. Notice how Amazon can hire millions, because even though the conditions are crappy, they pay $15 an hour. If you can’t pay your employees a living wage, your business model is junk.
Amazon pays $17/hr where I live, in the Central Ohio area. I can’t speak for other locations.
^Dumb*ss alert!!!!
You’re so financially illiterate you don’t even seem to notice that a “livable wage” is **entirely** dependent on the cost of goods which is also entirely dependent on YOUR wage (taking for granite you don’t count jelly beans for living).
Stupid is; is Stupid does.
If the alternative is to starve to death, they should want to work even for low pay and poor conditions. But since we now resemble a communist economy more than a free market one, they can simply sit on their ass using money stolen from people who actually do work.
And before you ask, yes, I’m 100% in favor of people who refuse to support themselves starving to death. That’s personal responsibility/accepting the consequences of one’s actions. The world is also a better place with less people like that. And if you don’t like those reasons, the alternative is theft. Supporting welfare is supporting theft, pure and simple.
It’s on these people that they never bothered to save for a rainy day so they are in a position to wait for a good job instead of having to take the first one available. It’s on them that they have next to no marketable job skills and could easily be replaced by any able bodied individual and bring in very little value to their employer and thus only command a meager salary with poor conditions.
I’m so sick and tired of this leftist pity for the laziest, stupidest, shittiest people in society and supporting their parasitic ways off the backs of the most industrious, hard working and productive.
Did you choose to be born intelligent? Or did you win the genetic lottery with parents who were not only middling intelligent but also living in the United States? If you’re making a decent living, big business just hasn’t figured out who to import or what to offshore to get rid of you. Not saying everyone deserves to be a millionaire, but the encouragement of immigration has been a deliberate effort to drive down wages for unskilled work. Further, while individuals aren’t really entitled to a minimum wage – they should only get what the market will bear – nor should there be a maximum for wages. It is not the right of restaurants to have workers who will work for what they want to pay any more than it is my right to have an apartment for what I desire to pay in rent.
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I have a Maserati shortage.
Stossle, the people pushing never ending welfare view it as a feature and not a bug
Stossel knows that and supports it.
Articles like this are just for show.
I read the headline and wondered if Stossel was trying to get uninvited from publishing here. “Now do the case for increased H1-Bs and guest worker immigration in general, John…”
I honestly believe that if an American is making more than 10% of what it costs to pay the rent, government owes it to corporations to increase immigration until the labor market loosens up.
What’s the saying? Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for the rest of his life.
Government’s motto seems to be to take away a man’s fishing pole and point him to the line where they hand out fish.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don’t teach a man how to fish and you feed yourself.” – Ron Swanson
As I’ve always said, if your job is to hand out fish you’re not going to be real enthusiastic about teaching people to fish.
Before I met my ex, she had tried to get some government assistance. They told her that she needed to sell her car and quit her job before they’d even consider giving her any help.
They’re not there to help. They’re there to create dependence.
^This^
And I think I’ve got you beat – About 25 years ago, I was hospitalized with a serious injury for over 2 months. The hospital’s social workers suggested that I should quit my job so I could go on Medicaid.
Of course since Medicaid is needs based, I would have had to bankrupt myself before I was eligible, but they thought that would be better (for them) than arguing with my insurance company.
…but they thought that would be better (for them) than arguing with my insurance company.
That doesn’t make much sense, being that Medicaid pays hospitals less than insurance companies.
I was in a fight with my insurance company. They wanted me out of the hospital, the doctors wanted me in.
That makes sense.
“since Medicaid is needs based, I would have had to bankrupt myself before I was eligible”
If you were hospitalized for a couple of months, that seems like it was taking care of itself. I got wiped out by a weekend in cardiac intensive care.
Funny, but the majority of people posting here would applaud those restrictions. Why give money to someone who can barely hang on as it is?
“Why give money to someone who can barely hang on as it is?”
They’ll spend it, and it shows up as income for someone else.
You must have traveled in the same governmental fields I did during the last twenty years of my employ.
Local government is infested with overly compensated SJWs, constantly advocating for even more for their customers. But to suggest that they might be biased was tantamount to suicide.
When I worked in private industry, I had a boss who often opined that our goal should be to improve our efficiency such that we eliminated our own positions. And, he had actually done that himself, several times and been handsomely rewarded with promotions and new responsibilities.
Go figure.
Teach a man to light a fire and you keep him warm for a night. Light a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life!
Know that it would be untrue
Know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
I didn’t set your house on fire
But it’s just the way I am
Have to take it for a fact
Life can really burn you up
When you’re a pyromaniac
So…
If you love somebody
Better set them on fire
Punk Rock Girl was better.
It’s a boring day – I’ve got nothing to do
Except to get a load of retards and drive em to the zoo
Big Lizard in My Backyard.
Did you like Pack AD?
If you you might like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km-cGh33hr0
ya it was good. definitely know of the Kills
I was a philly-in-the-80s kid we *knew* the Dead Milkmen just from seeing them a million times.
Bitchin’ Camaro
Beach Party In Vietnam
>>Bitchin’ Camaro
Hey Jack, what’s happenin’?
Did you get that from BLM?
Give a man a mute button so he doesn’t have to have an honest conversation and never hear him stop talking about it.
I prefer: Give a man a match and he will be warm for a few seconds, light him on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
The classic argument from the left is that the capitalist system has to bid for workers, with the highest getting them. That assumes that for profit businesses are the only ones in the market – now the small businesses not only have to bid against each other, but also against the government.
That is a bidding war they can’t possibly win.
“That is a bidding war they can’t possibly win.”
Then they can collect unemployment, duh.
The End Goal-Post. Government the almighty Gods…
You shouldn’t put that kind of mushrooms on your salads.
Surely the solution is to import millions of third world laborers to work for cut-rate wages.
If it’s not the solution, then we need to ask different questions.
It’s always the solution. It’s just like voting. Don’t like the electorate? Import a new one. Don’t like the working class? Import a new one.
It can get so tiring dealing with uppity Americans who think you should be able to earn a living even in one of those passé jobs where you don’t work from home on your laptop.
It’s not an incentive shortage. The government has created an incentive surplus for people to NOT work.
My neighbor quit his job sometime around September, hoping for covid-cash. He hasn’t received any. He is still out of work, and still hoping for covid-cash.
Hahahahaha!!!!!!! He’ll get nothing and like it!
The reporter interviewed a “Mx. San Martin, 27, who uses the pronouns they and them.”
Mx. Martin wants to work with pets. They complained that “there simply weren’t enough jobs that I would actually want.” Restaurant work “is not in my field of interest.”
I want to work with supermodels, yet here I am in engineering. And MY pronouns indicate at least a minimal level of sanity.
>>I want to work with supermodels, yet here I am in engineering
don’t engineers just make it work?
Nope, its the guys who coming behind them who have to make it work.
Don’t confuse engineers with sales.
Those robotisists in Japan are, but everyone here has to publicly pretend not to see the appeal, lol
“>>I want to work with supermodels, yet here I am in engineering
don’t engineers just make it work?”
Some problems don’t have engineering solutions.
Perhaps unicorn could design a better bra. But try to do better than Howard Hughes. Jane Russell later described the bra he designed to contain her … assets as a terrible torture device. Hughes was more successful at leveraging his father’s invention of an oil drill bit into a billion dollar a year conglomerate, and _that_ attracted women.
“I want to work with supermodels, yet here I am in engineering.”
It’s time to follow that dream, buddy.
$15K for cosmetology training? $15K covered the last 2 years of college for me (at a private university!)
Damn I’m old.
A fool and their money (cosmetologists and the women who use them, not you)…
Childish attitudes.
We’ve created a system where people no longer have to grow up.
I fault Toys ‘R Us for that.
Well, they’re all collecting unemployment now.
“MY pronouns indicate at least a minimal level of sanity.”
In the sense that zero is pretty minimal.
interesting the They guy wants to be a They but then refers to theyself in first person … “I” hasn’t been replaced?
interesting the They guy wants to be a They but then refers to theyself in first person … “I” hasn’t been replaced?
only “interesting” if you don’t know English and grammar. Or if you are trying to make a disingenuous point.
“I” is a gender neutral pronoun. Why would “I” be replaced?
I’m mocking the entire fucking premise.
poorly.
You’re mocking your own intelligence.
‘I’ is an offensively phallic letter, an painfully regular reminder that the patriarchy still rules over us all, even when oppressed women and mynorytyes try to speak they’re truth.
Should we replace “I” by “O” or “V” then?
I’d say Y but the “dinner at the Y” joke precedes … and girls don’t laugh at jokes anymore
IYi and omit periods randomly.
Truth to power!
“I” is a gender neutral pronoun. Why would “I” be replaced?
Hint: Forcing other people to use your pronouns has nothing to do with gender.
‘I’ is not the first person singular of ‘they’. One does not simply convert the singular of ‘they’ to ‘I’ by mere will, no exceptions granted for gender. We don’t make the same conversion for first person either.
Are you autistic?
Because it’s not plural. If you’re “they,” your first person pronoun should be “we.”
Try a Google search on the term “singular they”.
Or, you can just jump straight to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Hey, don’t worry about it. We’ll just open our borders and get lots of cheap foreign labor to come in. They’ll work for about six months, become eligible for basic income and stop working. Then we just keep repeating that until we are prosperous and safe.
Open border and basic income are libertarian policies! Reason say so!
Where does Reason say basic income is libertarian?
“The Most Libertarian Congressman Wants To Send People Checks. Here’s Why.”
Etc.
I’ve been saying this for several years now. Pre-covid, 2019, there were signs everyplace looking for help. Even then, it was hard to compete with the giveaways. Now, with the added sweeteners of longer and more unemployment, and the coming child tax credits, even the local supermarkets are pleading for help at $16/hr to start, and more for nights or weekends.
So very, very glad that I stayed in school, and then didn’t quit my job on the many, many, many days when I so desperately wished to do so. It makes it all so very worthwhile to know that my final income after I pay all my taxes is about five cents more than what I could make by hanging out all day long.
you’re half of what determines what your time is worth.
AND you have a monopoly on the supply!
I’m not a very smart man but even I knew this shit would happen.
It’s just human nature.
As much as I worked hard in my life, and lived well below my means so I could retire ASAP, I also took advantage of any opportunity to NOT work when I could get away with it. That is just how we’re wired.
You chose to retire, no?
America also has a blacklisting problem. For nearly 20 years now, I’m only allowed to work jobs where I’m interrogated by apparently homeland security folks. They determine which occupations I’m allowed to work in and how much money (if any) I’m allowed to make.
For example: we are allowed to perform extremely dangerous jobs but only in low population areas. We can do tree work but not allowed to earn a living on high rise building. Without charge, without judge or jury and without a court guilty verdict.
The governments own statistics indicate that there are about 1 million innocent people worldwide that were blacklisted after 9/11. Frankly we are tired of it!
Or perhaps only back-woods employers are willing to overlook your evident paranoia.
What did the idiot politicians think would happen when they give people unemployment amounting to DOUBLE what they worked for, of course they aren’t going back to work.
And, since you can stay on unemployment forever… nobody ever has to work again!
I went to high school with children of Republican legislators in the state legislature and an elderly family member was close personal friends to Barry Goldwater. In the late 1990’s my customer was Condi Rice. Guess the homeland security guys missed that part, apparently DHS didn’t have the money to do their due diligence (probably funding Fusion Centers).
Paying people not to work is a loss: society pays the same price but gets nothing in return. Not only that, but the loss off experience, the loss of skills, etc. It’s worse than getting nothing.
I can understand social safety nets, but it’s not supposed to be a social hammock. People are actually out here working, they have to for this whole thing we call the world to keep going, and intentionally sidelining people is a crime against humanity.
“intentionally sidelining people”
It boosts the employment numbers when your the new president in your first 100 days so it helps you and your party give the allusion that you’ve done something with “the economy” and everyone should thank you.
Brian-
Right on, you should check out the comments by former Congressman Alan Simpson in the film “Inequality For All”. Simpson is a real conservative and libertarian.
I have long believed the unemployment system needed an overhaul and now would be as good as time as any to start. I like the idea of Montana and Arizona giving bonus for finding a job and would suggest they add a second bonus at 6 or 12 month for keeping the job.
Unemployment insurance is a reasonable idea but it was geared to a market that is long gone. It dates back to a time when a plant might close but another company would buy the plant and rehire the workers. Today a plant closes and likely never reopens. Workers likely have to move, retrain or accept that they will never get a job at the same wages. Updated unemployment today could help these people, by facilitating a physical move, by supporting a person as they retrain, or by supplementing a lower wage job.
The problem we face today is a bit different the work market shrank during the pandemic and is now reopening. So benefits that were reasonable at the height of the pandemic are no so reasonable now. The solution here might be an unemployment benefit tied to the labor market. Also again tailored to the needs of the recipient. That doesn’t mean giving them what they want but asking them what is holding them back from employment and addressing that need.
I like the idea that people go find a job and make money.
Mic drop
“I like the idea that people go find a job”
Fine, get a job.
Start by wiping up the lefty shit you sprayed over everything.
Yea there are jobs out there. But they are commonly low wage, zero benefits, and sometimes not even full time. If someone takes these jobs then they will still not have enough to survive on.
We need to create a society we’re anyone who works a full time job will be able to make enough to live on and have health care.
How expensive is living and healthcare supposed to be?
Far more then min wage, and in many places even higher then a $15 per hour worker can afford.
I asked how much it’s supposed to be.
That is a great question. It is also unanswerable. The zoning board restricts the housing market. Tax incentives favor employer paid health care to wages. Medicaid pays below cost so hospitals bill above wherever they can to make it up. If I want to cut hair, I need an occupational license. Millions and millions of acres of land that could be used for homesteads are instead locked in national parks that people aren’t even allowed to visit. And don’t even get me started on quantitative easing to prop up capital markets. The funny thing when you visit Reason is that people seize on particular issues and cry that we must let the market decide. But this assumes that you can at this point find one single thing whose monetary value isn’t drastically affected by government regulations and/or political giveaways.
Is it bad for the government to pay more for unemployment than market wages? It’s probably not good. But I would hazard a guess that government backing of student loans, guest-worker programs and H1-Bs have done far more to distort the labor market than pandemic unemployment assistance.
Since the prices/costs of making enough to live and have healthcare are eschewed as a forgone conclusion, what constitutes a ‘full time job’? Does filling sperm donor cups for 8 hours a day/40 hours a week count?
It does for women.
Living is what you need to live, not to live luxuriously. When a smart phone is considered a necessity, something is wrong.
Having a phone is pretty necessary. How, exactly, do you pursue employment without a device to allow potential employers to contact you? And they do interviews over Skype nowadays, so yeah, you need a device that can run Skype.
“Having a phone is pretty necessary.”
No it isn’t, steaming pile of lefty shit.
Yes, it is, fucking idiot.
This is part of why I think you’re lying about having a paying job.
A phone, perhaps; a smart phone, no.
I can text on my flip phone, if I need to. And call and say “I’m interested in the job”. All for a fraction of the cost of a smart phone and access.
But for all the places that have signs up “help wanted”, you don’t need a phone, you just need to walk and and express your interest.
90% of those places will take your application and tell you that they’ll call you back for an interview. Except for day labor, generally no phone number = no interview = no job, because they have plenty of other applicants.
And a phone number is a requirement for most restaurant and store jobs. When someone calls in sick (or takes out the garbage and never comes back – it happened in my first paid job, washing dishes), they need to be able to call you and ask you to come in.
“…We need to create a society we’re anyone who works a full time job will be able to make enough to live on and have health care.”
We need an educational system such that lefty piles of shit like this are recognized for the idiocies they are.
How is it anything but an basic goals of any society that someone who works full time should not live in poverty?
How is it the concern of society what someone agrees to sell their labor for?
Tell that to Stossel.
And, keep in mind, that the employer usually has the power, but this situation of not enough workers is twisting employer panties a lot since they don’t know how to see the average worker as someone to negotiate with. It’s usually “take it or leave it” and boy are they leaving it. Time to rethink.
“…Time to rethink.”
Yeah, when the government uses my tax money to keep someone off a payroll, it’s time to rethink regarding automation.
“it’s time to rethink regarding automation.”
All we need to automate you is to make a machine that posts “lefty shit. lefty shit” as many times as possible.
Well, if steaming piles of lefty shit keep posting here, I’m fine with that, steaming pile of lefty shit.
I have a paying job; do you?
lEFTY SHIT
LEFTY SHIT
LEFTY SHIT
GOTO 10
“Well, if steaming piles of lefty shit keep posting here”
You appear to be using the phrase “lefty shit” as shorthand for “people who are better at thinking that Sevo is capable of.”
Boy, there sure are a LOT of lefty shits out there, huh?
Fuck off and die, steaming pile of lefty shit.
Another one!
“I have a paying job;”
I don’t believe you.
“We need an educational system such that lefty piles of shit like this are recognized for the idiocies they are.”
We recognize you. Don’t worry about that.
We need an educational system such that lefty piles of shit like this are recognized for the idiocies evil slavers they are. They have no magic formula to make a person who refuses to work hard or who is uneducated (whether because leftist ideologues have sabotaged the schools or because they refused to put forth an effort to learn) worth a living wage – so the real intention is to bar such people from working at all.
When 19th century leftists agitated for the minimum wage, they were honest about what they wanted it for: to lock what they called “inferior” people out of the job market, so they would not be able to raise a family and would die out in some unspecified manner. The only difference now is that they don’t expect those people to die out, but to live on welfare and to vote for the politicians that give it to them – forever.
Even Lying Bastard Johnson only wanted to own the black vote for 200 years
You voted for Bernie – right? “Have healthcare” — do you mean health insurance? Don’t confuse the two.
I meant have (receive) health care. Many “insurance” plans are unaffordable and still leave people without care.
You can thank O-care for that, lefty shit.
I blame Obama for not doing single payer when he had the chance. The plans were crap before the ACA.
“I blame Obama for not doing single payer when he had the chance…”
You’ve proven yourself that stupid many, many times, lefty shit.
Do you just attach “lefty shit” to your posts as a way of signalling that they should be ignored?
Bow down to Obama God.. Only Obama can give his minions healthcare — thou shalt have no other gods before Obama.
What’s severely retarded is you’re not blaming Obama for not giving you “single payer” healthcare… You’re blaming Obama for not POINTING GOV-GUNS at ALL USA citizens FORCING them to do what you *want*…
Sevo tired of explaining the same thing over and over again to ignorant lefty-shits has become blunt but accurate.
F-OFF Slaver lefty-shit.
“Many “insurance” plans are unaffordable and still leave people without care.”
“You can thank O-care for that, lefty shit.”
O-care is responsible for the way health insurance costs kept rising and coverage kept shrinking before there was O-care?
O-care mandated much greater coverage for those who may well not have needed it, steaming pile of (stupid) lefty shit.
Given your post so far, it’s certain this comes as a complete surprise to you.
Fuck off and die, slaver.
Right, the scary black man ruined everything for you, you poor shit-obsessed fool.
No, he just ruined any chance of anyone negotiating for health care costs in a relatively free market.
My family doctor stopped letting people pay what they could afford for an office visit because if he did, Medicare would cut what they reimbursed.
He retired around 1982.
At least from the day that tax advantages were created for employer paid health care, the government has been distorting the health care market. Ocare made things worse, but that is a long way from saying things were good before.
If he was retired, then MediCare SHOULD have cut off reimbursements.
” he just ruined any chance of anyone negotiating for health care costs in a relatively free market.”
Where were you living that had anything even remotely like a functional free market for health care? In your imagination, is the obvious answer.
We need to create a society we’re anyone who works a full time job will be able to make enough to live on and have health care.
We already have that society. What you want is for everyone’s WANTS to be met, a list that is endless and impossible to qualify or quantify.
” What you want is “…
Obviously, you’d know better what someone else wants than they would. Good job straightening them out.
Oh………….. You mean the time BEFORE the National Socialists took over the USA Government??? Ya; that would be pretty nice.
“. You mean the time BEFORE the National Socialists took over the USA Government???”
They only occupied the capitol for part of a day. Get over it. Or were you referring to the time they took over a bird sanctuary in Eastern Oregon? That one they held for a couple of months. the birds didn’t put up much fight.
Wow — UR as either as dumb as they come or just trolling for attention.
When you can summon up an insult using English grammar, come on back and try again.
It’s not up to government to either create incentives to work or not work. It’s certainly not up to govt to freeze the labor force into a status quo ante-covid merely because that’s what employers want.
The only people I know who are resistant to returning to work under pre-covid conditions are people who got screwed by employers then. Who lost their health insurance just when it might be needed. Or who got jerked around even more than all the govt lockdown/stuff required.
The money stuff will soon disappear. That doesn’t mean everything will return to what it once was.
Don’t be a victim. Be an employer.
Go ahead. Try it.
I dare you.
Stop whining you little bitch. It’s just the flu you know.
It’ll go away all by itself now that summer is coming.
“Stop whining you little bitch. It’s just the flu you know.”
Stuff your PANIC flag up your ass, stick first, cowardly piece of lefty shit.
Won’t that keep the shit from coming out?
come to think of it, that’d probably make you go away, you raging coprophiliac.
You’re right. People have had time to re-evaluate the situation they were in, and clearly many were in shitty situations. Who’d want to go back?
“…Who’d want to go back?”
Those who like to eat and aren’t paid to sit on their asses, lefty shit.
How much do you get paid for each person you call a “lefty shit”? It’s obviously not much. You should ask for a raise.
No one could pay me enough to identify lefty assholes like you.
So you just do it to identify yourself as stupid?
well, good job, then, I guess.
“…The only people I know who are resistant to returning to work under pre-covid conditions are people who got screwed by employers then. Who lost their health insurance just when it might be needed. Or who got jerked around even more than all the govt lockdown/stuff required…”
Amazing how lefty piles of shit find the world so unfair, isn’t it?
No. Right now it is the employers who are crying that it is unfair that they can’t find workers for their shitty jobs.
“…Right now it is the employers who are crying that it is unfair that they can’t find workers for their shitty jobs.”
Unlike lefty piles of shit, they are correct: When the government hands out taxpayer money taken at gunpoint, it makes the world unfair.
And, yet, I suspect that you were one of the millions of upper middle class white wahmim who demanded these workers at these shitty jobs bring you your $30 plates of take out and deliver your groceries to your door and manufacturer your endless supply of face diapers so you could feel safe during the pandemic.
“Amazing how lefty piles of shit find the world so unfair, isn’t it?”
What seems to be amazing is the ability of lefty piles of shit to bother you.
Almost as if anything that annoys you is going to be called a “lefty pile of shit” regardless of the shittiness, or the leftiness, of whatever it is that has tightened your dainty little panties.
So, as a steaming pile of lefty shit, you hope no one notices?
Why would I care if anybody notices that you get off on thinking about shit?
To whom are you replying, steaming pile of lefty shit?
To the biggest steaming pile in the vicinity.
Nobody is ever required to take a job they don’t want to take. If restaurant work sucks, then business owners can fix that if they wish. Let’s put the onus on the people who have $$ and not on the little people.
No, let’s put the onus on piles of lefty shit like you.
Fuck off, slaver.
“Fuck off, slaver.”
Odd response to
“Nobody is ever required to take a job they don’t want to take. ”
You DO want people to have to take a job they don’t want to take, so they can be free of slavery?
Fuck off, slaver.
Is life a box of chocolates, Forrest?
Fuck off and die, slaver.
Oh no! stupid belligerence isn’t working for you? What else do you have in the toolbox?
Let me guess… “something something lefty shit” is what you’re going to go with, isn’t it?
I should’ve guessed “slink off” as a backup possibility.
Labor is a commodity. If business can’t find employees, they need to raise wages till they do. Now of course…the few million people getting extra unemployment are having the government put there thumb on the scale, but business has gotten its entire foot on the scale for the last 3 decades as wages became stagnant and productivity kept going up. Profits through the roof, and workers have gotten none of it. Now labor is getting a little government assistance, and business is crying fowl. To effing bad. Make jobs less sucky!
“…but business has gotten its entire foot on the scale for the last 3 decades as wages became stagnant and productivity kept going up….”
I’m sure, as a pile of lefty shit, you have some theory’ as to how that occurred, right? Lay it out so we can laugh at your stupidity.
“… Make jobs less sucky!”
Make piles of lefty shit less stupid!
“I’m sure, as a pile of lefty shit, you have some theory’ as to how that occurred, right?”
It’s not exactly a secret.
The trick word is “mechanization”. The machines can do more work, and require fewer people to maintain them. Pop over to your local Wal-Mart. see those cool new self-checkout machines? They have like one employee watching over about ten checkouts in the self-checkout area, and then another one or two operating checkout lines the old-fashioned way, one worker per checkout. Does the one worker watching ten checkouts get paid ten times what the one worker watching one checkout gets paid? Nope. This observation does not require any lefty indoctrination. It was there the whole time, if you could have figured it out.
In which a steaming pile of lefty shit proves an inability to comprehend what has been written.
Well, it isn’t the first time you’ve shown an inability to understand what has been written, but it’s probably the first time you identified yourself as a lefty shit.
Your projection is obvious.
Fuck off and die, steaming pile of lefty shit.
Yes, projection is obvious. to everyone
the fact that it’s you exhibiting it is obvious… to everyone BUT you.
not a single solution i would suggest would be considered “lefty”. Our government has become a corptocracy, with business and industry using it to line their pockets. From Wall Street on down, tax breaks amd bailouts as far as the eye can see.
and as far as making jobs less sucky…any job becomes better if you pay more.
“as far as making jobs less sucky…any job becomes better if you pay more.”
No, the sucky-ness stays the same, you just get more volunteers willing to tolerate the sucky-ness if you jack up the pay-rate.
“not a single solution i would suggest would be considered “lefty”…”
By ssteaming piles of lefty shit like you, pollock and the others who have shown up whining about how unfair the world is.
Your fascination with shit is on full display. do you keep your supply up by drinking out of the sewage line?
Yep. The commentators around here will of course denounce TARP and the bailing out of big business in 2008. But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and that it had real consequences for the financial circumstances a lot of people face. COVID has been worse: governments all across the land announced that we would only be allowed to buy from Walmart and Target but not the mom and pop shops. That sucked for business owners. It also sucked for the people who worked for them. And when it came down to it, those workers decided that if businesses didn’t owe them a job, they didn’t owe the business their labor. And now we’ve got small business owners and the people who used to work at them at each others’ throats, with the employers mad that their former workers didn’t get screwed as badly as they did and so they seem to have a little leverage at the moment. But really, if you’re opposed to market distortions, you should be dusting off your Bill of Rights and noticed that the pandemic regulations represented a ginormous uncompensated regulatory taking and a ginormous redistribution of commerce, by government fiat, to other entities. And everyone here is worried that people make $18.75 an hour on unemployment?
“Make piles of lefty shit less stupid!”
They’re already less stupid than you are. How will you handle the competition?
Actually, I already know the answer to this question. You’ll whine about “lefty shit”s some more.
But if they accepted that, they would have to call into question their most deeply held political beliefs.
People don’t like to feel like they’ve been stupid. You’ll never reason people out of a position if it means they’ll be forced to think they were wrong about something.
Which begs the question, why am I here?
“People don’t like to feel like they’ve been stupid.”
Scroll up, you’ll find a guy proud to announce that he is stupid. He uses the phrase “lefty shit” to say so.
Sevo is not stupid. Sevo is… special.
Especially stupid. Almost Dr. Ed level stupid.
Sure, let’s we get rid of all the sucky jobs so no one has to work at one, ever. You going to cook your own food? Clean your own car, house, windows? Check out and bag your own groceries? Unclog your toilets and pump your septic?
^THIS
It’s not a question of getting rid of them. It’s a question of paying to have them done. And I’m not talking about the right to earn a living that covers rent and healthcare or anything like that. I’m just suggesting that the idea that being born to middle class parents so you’re special and deserve $50K/year but other people born to stupid parents are bad so they don’t deserve to be able to pay rent is stupid. If your labor is needed, you ought to be paid a decent rate. That rate is going to have to cover for suckiness as well as skills, exactly the same way you’d better pay a good salary if you expect someone to work 70 hours a week. If you’re not paying to make up for the suckiness of the job you’re offering, too bad for you. You don’t intrinsically deserve to be able to pay crap wages for crap jobs any more than employees intrinsically deserve to be paid $50/hour. Right now there is a shortage of people willing to do shitty jobs for low pay. There is no shortage of people willing to work in an office for $50K/year. So what we’re seeing is hardly shocking. It’s just what’s going on in one segment of the labor market.
Knew reason was full of snowflakes that think people just need to accept whatever crap is handed to them.
Love seeing how much salt there is because no one can serve them that chickfila sandwich.
“Knew reason was full of snowflakes that think people just need to accept whatever crap is handed to them.”
You misspelled “what they are worth”, lefty shit.
You miscalculated “what they are worth”, twit.
You are too fucking stupid to undertand the concept, steaming pile of lefty shit.
OH NOES. The loud stupid person called me stupid!
How will I summon the wherewithal to go on?
Oh, yeah, a hearty laugh should do it.
OH YESSSS.
I didn’t call you stupid; I pointed out the obvious.
HAHAHA.
“But that wasn’t true. There were lots of entry-level jobs within walking distance.”
Entry-level jobs are only of interest to people who can be hired to entry-level jobs. People who are overqualified for entry-level jobs may well be overlooked because the employer fears that as soon as a job they’re qualified for becomes available, they’ll take it and bolt.
So the highly-qualified may have a problem finding the type of work they’re actually qualified for, AND be unable to get one of those entry-level jobs in walking distance.
“Some politicians understand that handouts encourage dependence.”
And dependence on the politicians equals power for politicians.
“Entry-level jobs are only of interest to people who can be hired to entry-level jobs. People who are overqualified for entry-level jobs may well be overlooked because the employer fears that as soon as a job they’re qualified for becomes available, they’ll take it and bolt.
So the highly-qualified may have a problem finding the type of work they’re actually qualified for, AND be unable to get one of those entry-level jobs in walking distance.”
Steaming piles of lefty shit *always* drag around strawmen, since reality is so unfair to them!
Fuck off and die, slaver. Give your dog a place to shit.
Oops. Aimed at steaming pile of lefty shit James Pollock; deservedly so.
You have a real problem with projection.
You have a real problem with reality.
There’s that projection again.
Let’s be clear here; those on the left come in two flavors, or a mix between them:
1) They are parasites, feeding on the host until the host is dead, and, selfishly, hoping they die before the host does. Any reading of 20th-century history makes this obvious, even to leftys like Tony Judt; suggest you read “Post War” for an education. We don’t get many of those because we’re flooded by the next.
2) Useful idiots; typically those of inherited money or rewarded far above what their actual worth; the shitstain tony is an obvious example, as are most of the steaming piles of lefty shit (James Pollock being our newest example; thanks for showing up and proving there are many of you pathetic pieces of shit!)
Regardless, it is axiomatic that commies cannot exist without capitalism, while commies *require* capitalism to exist; witness Cuba and NK.
BTW, Pollock? Stuff your lefty bullshit up your ass; your head is asking for company.
Let’s be clearer. You are a fucking idiot and loud about it.
Lefty piles of shit hate it when they are called on their bullshit.
Yes, it does seem to bother you.
“Handouts” has a negative connotation. Strike and revise.
We can quibble about whether it’s a good idea to keep people from working during a pandemic.
Of course it’s true that giving people free money will change their incentive calculation when it comes to whether they go somewhere else for money.
The question isn’t to what extent these are morally corrupt people. The are behaving like rational market actors. The only debate is about whether it’s good policy.
And you can say that policy should concern itself with the moral purity of free people, but I prefer to just react to the pandemic and leave people’s moral lives to themselves.
And here we get the useful idiot by admission; a slimy piece of lefty shit who is proud to claim that no one should pay him/her what the asshole is paid, and thereby assumes other such worthless pieces of shit should also profit by such idiocy.
Fuck of and die, shitstain.
You’re an unuseful idiot.
You’re full of shit.
You are a coprophiliac.
Is there a single time you’ve ever even considered the possibility that a billionaire didn’t earn his money through hard work and ingenuity alone?
Your problem is you don’t hate government handouts. You hate poor and brown people. That’s all this has ever been about. Ape tribe shit and the lizard-brain feeling of disgust.
“Is there a single time you’ve ever considered…”
No. There is not. It’s none of my business. Don’t be so resentful.
Does it really feel that good to virtue signal about race in a discussion that has nothing to do with race?
What is wrong with you?
I disagree with this article. I have heard lots of people complaining where I live in Indiana on FB that they have no applicants for tons of jobs. However, when I look at the unemployment rate (as it is truly defined – looking for a job, and receiving unemployment benefits), the rate of unemployment in Indiana is 3.9%. That is really low. So how can the premise of this article be true?
Given that a lot of the unemployment rate includes those who are in transition from an old job to a new job, the labor pool is actually really low. The labor force of Indiana is 3.3 million, and the unemployed is at 130k.
You can’t find people for jobs in Indiana because most of them are already employed.
Is this true for all states? I don’t know. But possibly.
The thing is, they handwave long-term unemployed away. If it takes you long enough to find a new position, you aren’t “unemployed” any more. People who are “retired” aren’t “unemployed”.
The argument is about receiving unemployment benefits being the reason that no one can find applicants for jobs. In order to receive unemployment benefits, you have to qualify. Here is Indiana’s requirement:
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/collecting-unemployment-benefits-indiana.html
So again, 3.9% unemployment – 130k approximately of the labor force are receiving unemployment benefits. There are no hidden numbers here. Looking at who is receiving unemployment benefits gives a clear picture of it all.
So there’s people who aren’t working who want a job. Tell them they can’t have any benefits and magically (POOF!) they aren’t “unemployed” any more.
Here is another article:
http://www.therepublic.com/2021/05/18/unemployment_indiana_to_drop_out_of_fed_benefit_program-3/
so somewhere between 60,000 (traditional unemployment benefits) and 225,000 (additional federal aid programs) were receiving some sort of benefit up to 390 a week from state (although some would not get that full amount) and a total of up to 690 a week with Federal benefits.
There are a stated 116,000 open jobs apparently in the state of Indiana at the time the article was written – but you have to realize that not all of those people are going to be qualified for those jobs, and some of those people are collecting unemployment as a temporary measure while they get ready for accepting another job.
Sorry, I still dont agree with this article.
And I just don’t see how the pandemic stimulus would keep people from looking for a job. That money did not last long. There is no way it could keep you unemployed for more than a couple of months.
You have to look at it ideologically. There’s a set of people out there (they know which party they support) who are lazy and thus they assume that so is everybody else. They know that if someone would pay them not to work they’d never work again, therefore anyone who isn’t working is actively working to subvert the system. If you insist on approaching the question rationally you can’t be a Republican.
How is the rate of unemployment defined? AIUI, the long term unemployed (6 months out of work? Longer?) are no longer counted. Same sort of statistical lying .Gov does with the CPI.
Plus, there’s cash jobs, and other off-books arrangements. I don’t buy 4% either.
Yeah, they don’t count you at the state level past 6 months, because if you dont have a job at the end of 6 months, you don’t receive any more state unemployment benefits. Have you read and understood unemployment benefit regulations? You have to qualify for benefits by having made a certain amount of money in a certain time period. Meaning that if you go for 6 months without a job, you no longer receive benefits, and you cannot reapply for another 6 months unless you show that you have made a certain amount of income in a certain amount of time from an actual job.
How is this point escaping you? There are no hidden numbers that politicians are hiding from you.
The same way this point is escaping YOU. The numbers reported by the government as “unemployed” has only a tangential relationship to the actual number of unemployed people. Defining people who’ve been unable to find any paying work for more than whatever arbitrary time limit they set as not “unemployed” because they aren’t receiving unemployment benefits undercounts the actual number of people who need a job, which is what people who are interested in the “unemployment rate” really want to know.
The premise of this article is that there is not a shortage on labor, and its a direct result of people not wanting to work due to receiving unemployment benefits that are greater than maintaining employment and receiving and actual paycheck for work performed.
Please define more clearly what you mean by “people who need a job.” Are you indicating those that are not receiving unemployment and are not seeking or wanting a job? Or are you indicating some other group that is not being counted but are actively seeking a job? Either way, your point is irrelevant to the main argument of the article. Your point would prove that the article is false, as well. That there are people who are needing and seeking work and not receiving benefits.
“Please define more clearly what you mean by ‘people who need a job.'”
Which word is it you don’t understand?
” Your point would prove that the article is false, as well. That there are people who are needing and seeking work and not receiving benefits.”
apparently, you worked it out on your own.
The problem isn’t the benefit if $300 is preventing your business from hiring employees. Your business model shouldn’t exist.
Some businesses have been very successful in past decades at shifting employment costs to the public. This has given them an erroneous notion of what it costs to have an employee.
“Some businesses have been very successful in past decades at shifting employment costs to the public.”
Steaming pile of lefty shit lies again.
Nope. Putting your employees on food stamps and Medicaid IS shifting employment costs to the public.
Maybe you enjoy being ripped off. I don’t. I may be crazy but I am not stupid and subsidizing the labor costs of business where I do not shop to me is stealing plain and simple. If businesses want my money, the should do it the old fashioned way, selling me something I want to buy.
They’re not putting anyone on welfare. The people choose to go on it because it’s available. If it was not available, then they would work more.
“Steaming pile of lefty shit lies again.”
Would you fucking stop doing that?
Your business model shouldn’t exist.
That seems clear. Any business unwilling or unable to add $300/week ($15,000 annually) to every existing employee holding the same position as these new hires isn’t running its business the right way. Anybody who thinks that it will create discontent and resentment to pay a new employee $15,000 more for doing the same job as existing employees doesn’t know human nature. People don’t care about that kind of thing.
If your business model requires underpaying the workers you don’t have a sustainable business model, just as you can’t keep a business going if you don’t want to pay your suppliers.
Paying people $300 a week to do nothing is not something a regular employer can compete with.
And yet look at all the people who go to work!
ya it was good. definitely know of the Kills
I was a philly-in-the-80s kid we *knew* the Dead Milkmen just from seeing them a million times.
https://www.callboyjob.info/
Look, the original Green New Deal guaranteed “Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.” That’s the goal, even if making it explicit had to be withdrawn. So, what’s the question? We’ll give you money with no requirement that you do anything you don’t like doing. They won’t. Vote for us.
That day Democrats learned how to *STEAL* massive amounts of produce created by others using Gov-Guns and ‘fiat’ that they stole so d*mn much their “livable wage” produce supply went dry.
What are you, a Gov-Gun grabber?
“No one wants to work,” says a sign on a restaurant drive-thru speaker in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Please be patient with the staff that did show up.”
Regardless of the underlying reason, why does any employer anywhere think posting stuff like this makes them look good?
If it’s a drivethrough ,then the prices are likely controlled by the competition, not costs. So long as the consumer insists on the lowest cost regardless of any other consideration, the employer doesn’t have much option.
How about a free market solution? Like raising wages?
Really, when someone after working full time STILL has to apply for food stamps, well, it is NOT an incentive to work.
As as a taxpayer who gets stuck with the bill via food stamps, I am not much in love with the system.
And don’t explain to me why the system works or is good. Any system, no matter how idiotic, will work if you can stick someone else with the bill. Well, I am tired of being that somene else.
Local market has big sign up as you enter: ‘Due to the labor shortage, we are having to reduce our hours. Thank you for your patience, etc.’
Sad thing is, this is an upscale mom and pop place, in a well off resort town, and the reduction starts the Monday before one of the biggest weekends of the summer.
Here’s a hypothetical: John Smith is a devout Christian who has religious views against gay marriage. John Smith, in the process of looking for a job, is given an offer by a bakery to make cakes for gay weddings. Upon refusing, the baker reports John Smith to the state for refusing an offer, whereupon the state kicks John off of Unemployment Insurance.
So here’s the question: Does concern for government interference in the labor market cut the other way? Should principled libertarians also care when government incentives push workers into accepting jobs from employers they don’t want to associate with?
What about a store that opposes BLM offering a job to a BLM supporter?
Easy answer: except in the case of pharmacists selling birth control, libertarians/Libertarians aren’t concerned about the moral conscience of employees, and are exclusively concerned with the moral conscience of employers.
Or put another way… if Jack Phillips doesn’t want to sell cakes to gay folk, libertarians/Libertarians are fine with that. If one of Jack Phillips’s employees doesn’t want to sell cakes to anti-gay folk, libertarians/Libertarians don’t care and encourage Phillips to fire the disobedient serf.
So government incentives pushing people into jobs that are incompatible with their moral conscience? Entirely unconcerning to libertarians/Libertarians, as they have never cared about the moral conscience of employees in the first place.
” Here’s a hypothetical”
Here’s reality: If making cakes in return for money offends your religion, than working in a bakery isn’t the type of work you should be seeking.
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What if we let them keep the benefits after they get a job?
Oddly enough, employers offering $15/hour or more aren’t having these problems.
It’s almost like the problem isn’t that people don’t want to work, they just don’t want to work and still need welfare anyway.
And if your business can only exist if you off-load the full costs of your employees onto the government (which is what happens if your employees are also taking public benefits)? Then you don’t have a viable business, you have a business that exists via government subsidy.
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