Workers who are paid not to work--a Biden disaster

Some of you think those economy crippling benefits have stopped. They haven't. If your favorite restaurant closes or shop owner locks the door, it may not be supply chain. It's no one will work when being paid to stay home.

 
"Back in July, the federal government was still paying enhanced benefits to the unemployed—even though many in Washington, including prominent Democrats, were warning that the federal handouts on top of state unemployment payments were creating a big disincentive to go back to work. That extra federal payment, which had begun under President Trump and was extended by Biden last March, finally ended in early September, but other federal aid continues. The IRS, for instance, now pays families a child tax credit that has expanded to $3,600 per child under six and $3,000 per older child. A recent study estimated that this lucrative benefit, if it becomes permanent as some Democrats have proposed, could prompt up to 1.5 million more mostly low-income parents to leave the workforce over the next few years. Meantime, the Treasury Department has told states that they can use some of the $350 billion stimulus money Washington was sending them to support and expand their own unemployment benefits."

https://www.city-journal.org/biden-policy-encouraging-worker-shortages?

Even before the Covid-induced recession struck, public policy in America had been increasingly discouraging work through expanded and more generous disability payments, longer bouts of enhanced, less restrictive unemployment benefits, and more generous social-welfare payments. One consequence: the ranks of the permanently unemployed have grown in America. In the last 20 years alone, the country’s labor-participation rate shrank from nearly 68 percent of adults to just 63 percent right before the Covid lockdowns began. Then in March 2020, the rate slipped below 61 percent—an unprecedented drop. Since then, it’s climbed less than halfway back to pre-Covid level, despite widespread business re-openings and help-wanted signs everywhere. More people are getting used to not working, and the Biden administration’s proposals for expanding federal aid programs will do little to lure them back.

Extending the pandemic damage

“We have not seen an application in weeks,” says Steve Anthony, CEO of the Anthony Timberlands sawmill in Arkansas. He’s offering jobs that pay $800/week. But in Arkansas, federal and state unemployment benefits reach $1,051/week.

Anthony told my TV producer Maxim Lott, “If Congress elects to extend this $600 unemployment bonus, it will simply support a higher level of unemployment.”

Lott also interviewed Otis Mitchell Jr., who quit his job transporting hospital patients once he learned about the increase in unemployment benefits.

“My little girl is loving it,” said Mitchell, because he has more time to spend with her.

But it’s bad for hospital patients who need transportation.

Shame on the U.S. government for making unemployment pay better than work.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/05/20/the-dangers-of-caring-government-programs/?

State of the Union feel good throw aways

The president’s SOTU list—pre-K education; “equal pay”, raising the minimum wage or extending unemployment benefits--is not going to address the real drivers of upwardly mobility--marriage before parenthood and a high school education. Head Start after 50 years shows no discernible advantage in learning, behavior, parenting practices, or health outcomes (at $8,000 per child it does supply a lot of jobs) so why add compulsory pre-k education?  Marriage of her parents is a child's best hope to stay out of poverty, but welfare programs discourage mothers from marrying. Raising the minimum wage won't help people who haven't finished high school--it just decreases their employment opportunities. 92% of black teenagers in Chicago can’t find employment; how will raising the minimum wage help them? And the $10.10 minimum for government workers was a throw away since it is a tiny minority with few at that level.

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2013/04/10/black-unemployment-n1561096/page/full

And that new retirement vehicle? That’s puzzled everyone.  Don't look at MYRA if you have a 401-K or IRA. It's government backed securities. The rate of return this past year would have been about 1.4%. If you need more to open an IRA, just save it in your piggy bank and then invest. On your worst day, you'll get more than 1.4%.  The stock market has been going like gang busters since 2010. If there had been a MYRA, the return would have been dismal. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2014/01/30/myra-not-needed-you-can-set-up-your-own-retirement-plans/

Obama beats a dead horse named “The Gap.”

Obama, having embarrassed his administration with the tax increases and loss of insurance for millions, will once again bang the drum of income inequality to drown out the complaints, aka "the gap." But the gap for the majority who are not celebrities or wealthy millionaire politicians is caused by marriage, or the lack of it. To even it up will he tax married people more--oh wait, that is already the case, including higher prices for Obamacare than if they were single.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html

Class envy, lies, distorted statistics, fuel for anger, wagging finger--all after a very expensive holiday.  Really, it's discouraging how many Americans are blind to his methods. He can help close the gap by getting government out of the way, reducing regulations, lowering taxes, but he's done just the opposite. The stock market had an unbelievably good year—he parties with celebrity millionaires and billionaires and still gripes about the rich who finance his campaigns. Also, the country did very well under sequestration and the shut down. Economy actually improved.

Upping the minimum wage so it is more expensive for the middle class to eat at a fast food restaurant and extending unemployment benefits haven’t done anything for the low income in the past—in fact those programs worsen the situation.  And it certainly won’t close the gap between my income and the President’s.

Raise the minimum wage—put more young and low skill people out of work

January 2013 Bureau of Labor Statistics:   “Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.3 percent), adult women (7.3 percent), teenagers (23.4 percent), whites (7.0 percent), blacks (13.8 percent), and Hispanics (9.7 percent) showed little or no change in January. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.5 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier. . . In January 2012, the unemployment rate for Blacks was 13.6 percent; down 3.1 percentage points from the peak of 16.7 percent in August 2011.

Gun control and Immigration

Do you think employment and the economy are completely off the national radar? Seems to be for Obama and his back up singers in the media. In the bad old days of GW Bush I remember even fast food restaurants were advertising $2 above minimum with benefits. Mr. President, the recession was officially over in June 2009.

Bureau of Labor Statistics for January 2013 (this is for those of you who think reporting negative news about Obama is racist and hateful)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult women (7.3 percent) and blacks (14.0 percent) edged up in December, while the rates for adult men (7.2 percent), teenagers (23.5 percent), whites (6.9 percent), and Hispanics (9.6 percent) showed little or no change. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.6 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Why are Americans working less?

From the Wall Street Journal article, The Wages of Unemployment

1.  Food stamps—even before the down turn in the economy the program was expanding under Bush. There are over 30 million more Americans receiving food stamps today than in 2000.

2.  Social Security disability payments. Supposedly, we’re healthier than ever, but five million receiving disability by 2000, 6.5 million by 2005, and rising to nearly 8.6 million today.

3.  Pell grants. More people in college, fewer in the work force. In 2000, fewer than 3.9 million young men and women received Pell Grant awards to attend college. The number rose one-third, to 5.2 million by 2005, and increased a million more by 2008. In the next three years, however, the number grew over 50%, to an estimated 9.7 million.

For many, it just doesn’t pay to work!  And obviously, this problem did not start with Obama!

Hiring the unemployed

When I was on a search committee at Ohio State for a new librarian, we looked at the resume/vita pretty carefully for gaps. Or unusual positions. There are so many questions you CAN'T ask, you have to read between the lines. If there was spit up on her shoulder, that could explain some gaps. But if the guy had been a used car salesman for 5 years after graduate school, it did raise some questions about just how committed he was to being a science bibliographer.

The Obama 2012 election campaign is coming to Ohio this week. Oh, wait, it's the jobs bill campaign. Yeah. You betcha. Did you known that this bill prohibits discrimination against the unemployed when hiring? Think about that! How long "unemployed?" Do you want a med tech doing your lab results who has been out of work 5 years? Or a computer repairman? And what about academe? Or a chef? A lawyer?

Maybe the person's unemployment was a result of a down economy, but maybe it wasn't: when employers began tightening their belts and cutting the dead wood, that employee was let go, and with all the extension of "unemployment benefits" he just continued in that mode and didn't try very hard to find a job.

And now you get to interview him. Do you even want him bussing tables, or changing tires?

Obama is lying again

Ratcheting up the partisanship, Obama is lying again about Republicans. They aren't "blocking" extending unemployment benefits from 99 weeks to 126 (retroactive), they are asking that the President use one of his private slush funds, like TARP or ARRA, which aren't being used to create "shovel ready" jobs. Or cut some other government wasteful program--put a government employee in the "out of work" line. Wouldn't real jobs be better than government checks? Well, no, not to Democrats who know from the FDR years, this is how you build loyalty across the generations. You buy it. But even FDR used it to put people to work instead of leaving them standing on the street corners or hanging out in bars.