Someone Please Explain To Me

thanks for the link BW.

This study is flawed in many respects, but one of the biggest flaws is the assumption that state Unemployment offices will enforce the law.

Remember during the Obama years where everyone was getting disability?

Based on my experience, I think we’re seeing the same thing here.

This is a little long but stick with me.

When things got slow because of the virus back in early March, our employees were very happy that we kept people busy by adding odd jobs to help boost their hours.

Then the law passed and people got word that there was this unemployment incentive. Five employees out of our 35 at the time, just stopped coming to work.

Then, as many of our customers wanted to best the upcoming feared more stringent closures, we got real busy. We needed all hands on deck.

Kept on calling the five, no reply.

Then we get the PPP, and there is a provision in there that in order not to have the AWL employees count a against our forgiveness of that loan, that we needed to do two things:

1. Send a certified letter to the employees letting them know that their same job was there waiting for them with full hours
2. If they did not reply nor did not return, notify the state unemployment office of this, which we did.

There were five guys who disappeared.
One returned to work a few weeks later and has been working full time ever since.

One said he had to help with the kids because his wife needed to work. We’ve know for months that his wife is collecting UC, and he has taken a few under the table move jobs per week for others. He hangs in the same crowd as my nephew, but he doesn’t know that my nephew is who he is. My nephew also coaches his kid!

Two guys said that they lived with elderly relatives and didn’t want to put them at risK.
The last guy, just never came back and has never answered us,.

So, we have a fairly young employees base and they are very active on social media. And, the last three guys who are out aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, and didn’t think it was a bad idea to post things of them out and about, in bars, food places, all three playing 5 on 5 basketball over the months.

We continue to see their UC charges on our account, and have sent follow up letter to them to no avail. This started in early April, and they continue to get juiced up unemployment. We are very lucky to be busy. Lately we’ve done a bunch of unexpected business with the exodus of the wealthy from center city. It is very difficult finding good people and these guys were pretty good. Because so many people are collecting more not working, there aren’t many applicants out there. As a result, our existing crews have had to work many more hours. The people working harbor hard feelings too.

I doubt it is just state agency incompetence at play here. It seems to me that there Is an understanding somewhere to be hands off.

think about it BW, why would a guy making $15 an hour, decide to pass up $22.50 an hour, and not incur transportation costs, transportation time, not be exposed to the Covid realities? What they should do, is cut it down to 90% of their wages, which would estimate their net after transportation costs, and would still represent a huge increase over the normal 50% they get from UC.

There are many food places near work that have cut their hours and a big reason is they don’t have enough workers. I saw this down the shore last weekend. Every place of business for food or drink had reduced hours. The people are saying the same things, that state UC offices have continued to pay.

There are two things at play that are unusual:

1. Ever before have employees been paid significantly more NOT to work.
2. There is a virus out there which in many businesses, makes return to work less safe than staying at home.

Capitalism dictates that the resources go to the highest bidder.

At this time, the highest bidder for anyone making under 65K a year, net of travel, is unemployment.

Just like when any employee leaves a company to accept a higher paying job, these guys left the company to accept the higher government UC.

I don’t see it as an indictment on the workers per se as opposed to an indictment of government who couldn’t run a fucking lunch truck. In what world do you pay people more not to work, than to work?

Good point One, a lot of the discontent in the work force today comes from poor management. I was successful as a manager because I did my best to keep my employees satisfied, but too many managers don't realize how important that is. I have seen so many bad managers out there, and most are because managing and leading are two different things. Good leaders inspire people to overachieve, bad ones use fear of retribution to motivate, and it has the opposite effect. My point is that those low wage workers that you saw as lacking were as much a product of how they are managed, as they are of over inflated expectations. I don't know about you, but in my much younger days I worked some menial jobs before I got my career on track. Even when I did, I started in retail, which in management terms means you have to be able to do every job the employees do, along with the management end of things. People today want instant gratification, they think a degree earns you a ticket on the money train, wrong! You want the big bucks, expect to work your ass off, day in and day out, for a couple of decades at least.

You're absolutely right.

I know you did the math - that $600/wk from the Feds is $30K/yr.  That's ON TOP of whatever the state UC was doing for you.  Very few people are virtuous enough to go back to work for less money than is already flowing in the door for doing nothing.  And the truly enterprising will go out and do under-the-table work and make it an even more lucrative time for them than it already was.

It's insane.

I'm afraid the Republicans will cave and that this nonsense will go on indefinitely.