The lazy-worker test has arrived – By Rick Newman (Yahoo Finance) / Sept 7 2021
If you believe Republican governors, some 11 million jobless Americans will now be racing to fill the many job openings businesses say they can’t fill. That’s on top of 3.5 million idle workers who were supposed to start clamoring for jobs during the last couple of months.
Nearly 15 million Americans have now lost federal jobless benefits that Congress initially established in the CARES Act of 2020. Several follow-on coronavirus relief bills extended those benefits, including the American Relief Plan, which Congress passed this past March. Most of those benefits expired on Sept. 6, including an extra $300 per week in traditional jobless aid and other amounts for gig workers and others who don’t have a regular employer. The Sept. 6 expiration affects 11.3 million Americans, according to Oxford Economics.
Republican governors in 25 states ended those federal benefits early during the summer, claiming they were hurting businesses by paying people more to stay home than to work. That took roughly two months’ of federal benefits away from another 3.5 million Americans or so.
The math suggests the disincentive to work could be legitimate. The average state unemployment payout is about $400 per week, or $1,700 per month. Add another $1,200 in monthly federal aid, and the two combined might equal nearly $3,000 in monthly income. That’s equivalent to roughly $19 per hour (for a 40-hour-per-week job). So somebody who could only find work paying less than that might be better off taking the benefits instead.
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