Why look for work when Uncle Sam pays me to not work?

| April 26, 2021

This is a common mindset when individuals make more money through government assistance than they would at work. This is what’s occurring as the government’s efforts to help people deal with the coronavirus leave many with more money a week than what they made before the pandemic.

Businesses across the country are left with a shortage of people applying for jobs with them. One McDonald’s franchise offered people $50.00 for coming in to do an interview. However, they fell short of the responses they needed to fill job positions.

From The Washington Examiner:

Under the status quo, the federal government is supplementing existing state-level benefits with an extra $300 per week until September. This means that nearly 40% of workers can earn more from staying on the welfare rolls than from returning to work. Many others can earn 70%, 80%, or 90% of what they were making.

In Massachusetts, for example, one can earn up to $1,100 a week on unemployment benefits under the current system. That’s far more than the $600 a week one would make working a $15/hour job. Is it any wonder so many employers are struggling to hire?

One of the most basic lessons of economics is that human behavior responds to incentives. We know that when the government places a tax on cigarette sales, for example, people smoke less. Similarly, when the government subsidizes higher education, more people will go to college.

What did lawmakers expect would happen when we subsidized unemployment and disincentivized working?

The Washington Examiner has more here.

Category: Politics

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MustangCryppie

Or alternatively, work FOR the federal government!

A friend of mine is a contractor at a 3 letter agency in DC. He told me that, during this COVID debacle, in a 3 week period he would work one week and then sit on his butt at home for two weeks…and got paid for all three weeks. Same for the guvvies of course.

If we had forced them to stay home all the time and not paid them at all for the work they did not do, this COVID crap would have been over a looooong time ago.

MustangCryppie

Just talked to my friend. He told me that he as a contractor has been back to a normal schedule for a year, but that the guvvies are STILL doing the 2 week off, one week on bullshit.

Incredible.

Hack Stone

When Hack Stone is no being Director Of Media Relations for a proud but humble woman owned business that sells software to the federal government, he supplements his income by working as a contractor for a federal agency located within the Beltway. Inauguration Day, all of the government employees were paid for the day and excused from work due to the impact that the Inauguration would have on the commute, despite the fact that they were, and continue, to telecommute. Slimy contractors had to say a day of vacation, and were forbidden to make up the hours during that pay period.

Green Thumb

Yeah.

I wonder how Phildo and All-Points Logistics are holding up.

My best guess is with Phildo’s gravy train running, many folks opted to stick around.

Drawing unemployment is one thing, but making taxpayer-funded bank based upon The False Commander “Phony” Phil Monkress’ bullshit Native American, Navy SEAL and Law Enforcement claims is a lot more appealing.

HMCS(FMF) ret

I’ll bet you that Phildo is “working it” behind every dumpster within a 100 mile radius of APL.

5JC

So basically what you are saying is that 2/3 of Federal Government Employees are not needed at all? Given my experience as a military officer working at an agency dominated by GS’s I can validate that as 100% true.

timactual

“essential” workers all.

Ex Coelis

Yup. No harm in from coming from a fairly decent paying mil-spec job(CF Reserves) to exiting and going after and getting a better-than decent paying Gov’t job. Yeah, I know, whether one is employed by the Forces or works directly for the government itself – one is still drawing a pay cheque from the taxpayers coffers. Bottom-line – after I left the Reserves,I did not sit on my ass, cooling my heels, waiting for a job to magically drop into my lap – I put in a fuck-ton of applications, went to quite a few less-than scintillating interviews but persevered and eventually, got hired… Call it welfare or call it something else – there’s no such thing as a free lunch on the taxpayers and I’d rather work or die trying. To those who would prefer the ‘free lunch’ option 🖕

MI Ranger

And they wonder why so many kids going to colleges, come out with degrees they can’t use? There have always universities willing to give you a degree in what ever degree you fancied, but it was usually reserved for those people with trust funds and wads of cash who were hiding out from reality and not wanting to graduate (I had a private dorm admin who had been there for 12 years, when I attended the University. He was three hours short of 8 degrees, and was careful not to take a course that would qualify him to graduate. Nice guy, not creapy, happy to be living a good life with little responsibility).
Once upon a time, our Education and Labor Secretaries would champion the type of education that our country needs (like Tradesman and technicians) instead of just pimping useless degrees in fields that are overcrowded!

Green Thumb

I just want to bang on my drum all day.

Anonymous

And they teach them stuff parodied here:

Bill R.

A close friend is a supervisor in a small manufacturing plant here in Michigan. She currently supervises 8 employees but has been looking for 22 more for months now. Nobody wants to work. There are Help Wanted signs everywhere around her. Not all jobs pay very well but most do and even those cannot be filled.

UpNorth

Same in West Michigan, “help wanted” signs everywhere. The big box stores, Meijer’s, Walmart, Sam’s Club, can’t hire enough to fill vacancies.

ADA

Where is this? My brother is an underemployed mechanical engineer in Michigan and might want in.

Bill R.

Around here, not her.

David

Have a friend who is a professional parts counter guy. Certified master in GM and VW. Overall, between unemployment and extensions and stimulus checks he has cleared a decent, not great, year in pay. But even he admits that it is hard to motivate yourself to job hunt when sitting on your butt pays the same with no boss aggravation or commute hassles.

Jay

My uncle runs a beverage trucking plant in eastern NC. He’s desperate for truckers to make hauling runs, grossing 1600 a week. He can’t find a body to do this. They are opening a Pratt & Whittney plant and Amazon fulfillment center to bring about 3K jobs to the area and filling them is so low right now because they can’t find anyone to do it.

Meanwhile, if I’m out of work longer than a week or two on vacation I start losing my mind

Nexus

Got any contact info? Might have a few interested parties.

SgtBob

West Central Florida, lots of Help Wanted signs. Some fast food places closed at night for lack of workers.

5JC

That is happening here too. Our 24 hour Fast Food places are now 18 hour places and the 18 hour places are now 12 hour places. Even Walmart is short handed. No one can find anyone willing to do anything. Small business owners are begging on facebook for anyone to come and work.

KoB

It’s everywhere. Brother just drove, in a meandering path, all the way from Western South Dakota to Central Georgia. He saw more Help Wanted signs than billboards. And many of the billboards were Help Wanted signs. Every business in my little ‘Ville is the same, screaming for help and offering decent money.

This is all part of the Master Plan to make We, The People more dependent on the Grubermint. When all of the independent business are driven out of business for lack of employees, that is when the grubermint will start forcing people to do “essential jobs” to serve the elite.

Ex-PH2

Glad I’m retired and don’t have to wonder if the company I worked for will still be there on Monday.

There are two sides to that coin, y’know.

George V

I’m now convinced that all the extensions and additions to unemployment have two objectives:
– Make $15/hr the de facto wage since you can make as much or more sitting at home.
– Make universal basic income another “right” by sleight-of-hand. Continuous high unemployment benefits are effectively the same as UBI.
Expect the high unemployment benefits to continue even though they are no longer needed. Congress and the administration will continue to extend via amendments to legislation passed by this resolution process or by ending the filibuster.

A Proud Infidel®™

I’ve seen that in years past as well. After the first time my Dad retired, he and Mom wanted to have a horse stable built out in the boonies where they live. There were plenty of young and able bodied young adult males around but they had to hire a Hispanic Crew from out of town to do the job because said young locals had gotten fat and lazy from being on welfare to the point where they didn’t want to get caught making additional money and losing their free ride, that was just over 20 years ago.

LeanMarine

Did API just make a case in support of Mexican immigration?

A Proud Infidel®™

Just a-sayin’ that the libtard politicians have made far too many young able-bodied people too fat and lazy off of handouts and that has encouraged illegal immigration.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”

There is much to that comment for so few words.

These days if there is a program designed to benefit anyone with an actual need, the scammers and lazy fucks will be able to exploit it.

FFCRA for those needing some time from work to recover from adverse effects of the vaccine, from COVID itself, caring for a family member, etc…was a very decent piece of legislation from a well meaning government. In reality the minimal reporting requirements had the function of creating extra vacation for people who were comfortable lying about their situation.

Pay people to stay home more than work, it’s not surprising they don’t want to work…why deal with a pain in the ass boss in a service sector job when you can live stress free without working?

rgr769

I believe your quote above is a comment from a certain Frenchman named Alex something back in the distant past.

Poetrooper

Some things are so glaringly obvious one has to wonder why they aren’t readily apparent to everyone. When they passed that “decent” piece of legislation, I told Miz Poe,

“Their employers are never gonna get ’em back…”

rgr769

Now JoeBama puppeteers want to make the federal $300 per week benefit permanent, rather than have it expire in September.

Devtun

Article from couple months ago. Our cousins in Australia look to be experiencing strangely similar issues.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9310139/Too-Centrelink-handouts-people-dont-want-work.html

Hack Stone

Thunderstixx

I remember the Bob Newhart Show with the drinking games, everytime the always HOT Susanne Pleshette said Bob you had to slam a shot !!!
God I loved that show !!!
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0627878/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Hack Stone

Apparently sucking on the government teat has been going on for eons.

MarineDad61

Hack Stone,
Hilarious.
Does YouTube know how politically un-woke it looks,
when I watch the video you posted, and then
YouTube automatically points me to this???
Another Mel Brooks classic???
lolol

Thunderstixx

I simply cannot tell you just how many help wanted signs I see every day in my travels.
Jimmuh was President when I got out of the service and there were no jobs anywhere, nowhere…
This place is more than on fire.
60 tower cranes are working in Austin on any given day.
That is a huge number.
Now we need to start sending our homeless back to Seattle, San Francisco, commiefornia, NY, NJ etc !!!
The good thing about having that many homeless camps is the the mayor of Austin, the drug adddled adler has opened up new Air B&B’s now. Rent out a tent for just $50. a night under the finest bridges in America !!!
Outdoor plumbing, sleep under the stars, lots of great company and always lively companionship !!!

Hack Stone

You forgot the entertainment. No better ways of time than two vagrants stabbing each other over a shopping cart full of trash.

Slow Joe

I don’t understand the mentality behind welfare. Isn’t it obvious that people on the dole will not work?

When I first came to America I was working the next day for a salary that would be miser for me now, but at the time was like paradise.

My first vacation was after I joined the Army, when discovered that there was such a thing as paid leave. I remember that my first block leave I didn’t take it because I didn’t know what to do with my time when not working.

Times change though. Now I love to be on leave. I suspect the Army is a socialist experiment. I mean, the friggin NCOIC of the mess hall gets paid as much as I do, and he never has to leave the wire during deployments or expend endless days at the ranges or training areas when in garrison.

Every pogetry weak ass mofo that has my rank makes as much money as I do, without ever fuckin EVER having to do the shit I do.

So fuk dat sheet.

The Army is a fkuin socialist experiment. We all get paud teh same based on rank and time in service,

I just got back from a night M4 qual, and all my poggy neighbors are warm in their beds, and will wake up tomorrow, not do PT, and live the “Army” life.

Lean Marine

“The Army is a fkuin socialist experiment. We all get paud teh same based on rank and time in service”

No they don’t. SF get assignment inventive pay and re-up bonuses, as do doctors, lawyers, pilots….

Slow Joe

Reading comprehension dude.

I am talking about the different MOS within the same formation.

SFC D

So, because you chose to be Infantry, you should be paid more than everyone else at your pay grade?

fuk dat sheet.

Good luck winning the war alone.

Slow Joe

Of course I should be paid more.

I train day at night, I expend far more time away from wife and kids shooting night tables, staying over night at ranges, even my ACFT scores have to be much higher than yours.

Meanwhile, all the little pogs are sleeping sound at home.

Fuk dat sheet.

This is a socialist experiment.

Claw

Well, Welcome to the suck that is the 4th ID./s

Which outfit did you end up in? 1/12 IN?

SFC D

Let’s see you win battles without us little pogs. Yes, I’m fully aware that there are only two jobs in the Army: You are either Infantry, or you support the Infantry. I and many others here made careers out of ensuring YOU had what YOU needed to succeed. I have 9 bars on my right sleeve that tell you I’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Climb down off your high horse and lose the self righteous bullshit attitude. You’re a Non-Commissioned Officer. Act like one. If that’s too tough, try this:

https://www.buttpaste.com/

Green Thumb

Infantry as fuck.

Roh-Dog

“We know that when the government places a tax on cigarette sales, for example, people smoke less.”
I’m the exception to the rule, the extra tax burden causes me to drink more and there is a direct correlation between my booze consumption and rate of cigarette use.
It’s a viscous cycle, one I intend to win: actively recruiting a ‘liberation force’ to ‘Afghanistan’ Virginia for the tobacco. No Christians In Action need apply.
Oh, and ALL government subsidies are amoral.

timactual

Basic Economics that even a politician should understand; if you pay more for something, you get more of it. That goes for unemployment, too.