That’s what 12 states have decided to do. They’re going to refuse the $300-per-week federal unemployment insurance supplement. The goal, as Utah governor Brian Cox has said, is "to get more people into the workforce to get those jobs, to get back to employment." [Source]
However, the problem with common sense is that all too often it’s neither common, nor sense.
In this case, cutting back on unemployment benefits is a strong-arm tactic to fix the wrong problem. We want people to go back to work – and that’s fine – but in order to craft the right policy, we should probably answer a few questions first:
- Is it true that “people don’t want to work,” and
- If so, why don’t they?
As Sandra Newman put it, no, but only because “none of us wanted to work in the first place.”
Joking aside, to say “no one wants to work anymore” is an oversimplification. Rather, it’s more accurate to say, “No one wants to deal in the same conditions during a pandemic for the same – or less – amount of money as before.”
While “It is true that a sliver of people would rather stay home for a few months making as much, or more, from unemployment than they would defrosting meat patties or answering phones,” that’s not always the case. [Source]
Consider my mother’s experience.
My mother quit her job at her local Dollar Tree store during the height of the pandemic in late spring/summer 2020. She felt a lot of anxiety about customers who wouldn’t wear a masks and were combative about it. As an older worker, she was keenly aware of the risks to those in the higher age groups, and disliked the way the management relied on their lowest ranking employees to enforce their own safety in the face of angry customers.
She didn’t need that. She didn’t appreciate being put at risk, and she realized she didn’t really need the money, so she quit. Although her reasons could be condensed into the simple statement that “she just didn’t want to work anymore,” the fact is that the risks and disadvantages of working outweighed the benefits.
Disney employee Kayleigh Price felt the same way. While it was a dream come true to work for (pre-pandemic) Disney, the new post-COVID environment wasn’t worth it.
“Each day I disappointed more people by informing them of the services no longer being offered or the new procedures that were in place. I politely asked over and over for adults to wear their masks properly and stay 6 feet from others.
A lot of my interactions became negative because I was just doing my job, which was to make sure everyone was safe. But the majority of tourists seemed upset with me for doing just that.” [Source]
In short, Price left when her customer service job lost its luster. She wasn’t bitter or angry – it was just that the situation changed and she didn’t have the same energy anymore. She wasn’t on her “A” game, and she knew it. If I were a Disney manager, I’d be grateful that she left on good terms and freed up her position for someone who could feel the same upbeat energy she had when she’d first started.
Others have treated the COVID shutdowns as opportunities to pursue more education or a different career. As LaShanta Knowles explained, “I stayed out of comfort and out of fear if this job didn’t want me, I didn’t think anyone else would. Luckily, I don’t feel that way any more since I went back to school.” [Source]
So that’s the anecdotal evidence, but is it representative of the wider data?
I think so. According to one CNBC poll of 1000 unemployed, active job seekers, 87% of those surveyed said they had not received an offer in the past six months. Among those who had received an employment offer, but rejected it, 65% said that unemployment benefits were not a factor in rejecting a job offer. The top three reasons for rejecting an offer were: 36% Not enough money, 35% COVID concerns, and 31% Need to care for my family.
In many cases, those who cited salary concerns said that post-COVID wages were lower than what they were making paid before the pandemic. [Source]
Unsurprisingly, COVID is still a big concern. As of April 2021, only half of the U.S. population had received even a single dose of the COVID vaccine, and only a third was fully vaccinated. Given that we would need to reach 70-85% before herd immunity would kick in, and there are still significant parts of the population that remain vaccine hesitant, I wouldn’t be too excited to work in a job that required a lot of public interaction either.[Source]
Moreover, service-industry occupations remain dangerous. Despite the drop in COVID cases, the number of deaths among service-industry workers is higher than even those in the military (at least in California).[Source]
The fact that in many places schools are still closed is also a factor. Hawaii, for example, doesn’t expect to return to in-person school until the next school year. And for as long as elementary students are home, adult supervision will be necessary.[Source]
So while, on the face of it, getting people back to work is a great idea, there are significant obstacles for the wider economy to navigate. There’s the lack of child care options (even if it’s just a public school option), the fact we still don’t have herd immunity, and the question of compensation when there isn’t reliable way to ensure worker safety.
Given the realities of service-industry work, the refusal by 12 states to continue federal unemployment insurance supplements seems heavy-handed. Instead of working with employers to develop protocols and messaging would allow for a whole-of-society solution, these states are content to push the “easy” button that threatens workers with destitution if they don’t – in Gov. Cox’s words -- “get back to work.”
So while I sympathize with business owners' difficulties, I also recognize that we have a long history of crying "worker shortages" that dates back hundreds of years. [Source]
If we can't find enough workers to fill the jobs, maybe the problem's not with people. Maybe the problem's with the job. [Source]
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