A Dow Jones survey of economists earlier this year showed that one million new jobs would be added to the economy in April. Instead, only about a quarter of that number were produced, as just 266,000 new jobs were recorded. And, instead of the unemployment rate dropping from 6.0 percent in March to 5.8 percent in April, it rose to 6.1 percent.
That is sharply higher that the 50-year low of 3.5 percent in February of 2020, before the COVID pandemic hit.
This result received not-pleasant headlines. “Hiring was a huge letdown in April,” CNBC reported. Bloomberg said, “The numbers are out, and on the top line they are way worse than expected.” And Axios called it “the biggest miss, relative to expectations, in the history of the payrolls report.”
Digging into the specifics of this disappointing result, DailyWire.com noted that “The black unemployment rate increased, 18,000 manufacturing jobs were lost, no construction jobs were added, unemployment for Americans without any college education increased, and women had a net loss in jobs.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that nearly 10 million Americans, 9.8 million to be exact, remained unemployed in Biden’s economy.”
The New York Post reported that prices have increased for some goods, described as “surging due to shortages connected to supply-chain issues and other factors.” The story went on to say that some economists believe the country will experience inflation for months.
CNN’s Christine Romans said that “if you haven’t felt [inflation] yet, it’s coming.” She predicted higher prices for many goods, such as toilet paper, diapers, soft drinks, plane tickets, and a full tank of gas, adding that, “Whirlpool is raising prices of some of its appliances by up to 12 percent.”
The Post noted that business owners, especially in the retail and travel industries, are struggling to recruit new workers. And it cited comments by economists and companies that blame government stimulus payments for making it more attractive for people to remain on unemployment than for going to work. They make more money on unemployment than on the job, and going back to work and making less money would actually make things harder on their families.
This idea has been advanced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As reported on Daily Wire: “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce directly blamed the Biden administration’s stimulus spending for the worsening economy, saying that he was paying people to not work.”
The Chamber said, “The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market,” and suggested: “One step policymakers should take now is ending the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit.”
These $300 supplements result in approximately one in four recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working, according to the Chamber’s analysis. Others do just as well, or nearly as well, on unemployment as when working.
Officially, there were 9.8 million Americans unemployed last month. And, there are 6.9 million jobs needing workers to fill them. Normally, thousands of jobs would have been created each month without the pandemic, according to Elise Gould, senior economist with the progressive Economic Policy Institute. She estimates that due to this factor, the number of unfilled jobs would be between 9 and 11 million.
Some are asking if this condition is accidental, or if government is deliberately disincentivizing people from working to make them more dependent on government. The socialists among us would surely celebrate such action.
Whether it is a deliberate action or not, the country is suffering from too many people sitting on the sidelines. Tens of thousands of businesses have found it difficult or impossible to reopen, or to expand to previous operation levels.
Last week, CNBC reported on a March survey by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which “found that 42 percent of owners had job openings that could not be filled, a record high. Ninety-one percent of those hiring or trying to hire reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill.”
Holly Wade, executive director of the NFIB Research Center, commented that business owners “have made it to this point and they’ve adjusted their business operations to get through the worst of the pandemic, and now they are saddled with not being able to increase business operations when they find the opportunities.”
Many businesses have raised wages to attract workers, but many others cannot raise wages. The restrictions on occupancy in restaurants, bars and similar businesses reduce business income. Increasing costs by raising wages when income is made lower by restrictions puts the business at further risk of closure.
And yes, some workers are worried about being exposed to the coronavirus if they return to work.
The government must stop these supplemental unemployment payments that make it more attractive for some formerly employed folks to stay on unemployment instead of getting back to work. The repercussions of not ending these payments is a very serious problem for small businesses, and for the economy.
Government’s job is to create an environment conducive to businesses, not to have policies that discourage people from working.
No comments:
Post a Comment