As of this writing, there are a record number of job openings in America as more and more of the country reopens after being shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Job openings popped to a record high in March as employers struggled to find workers to fill those positions, the Labor Department reported" in recent days, CNBC noted.
But there's another side to this coin. Even as a record number of jobs now exist -- some 8.12 million -- the number of jobs filled in April was a dismal 266,000, falling way short of the estimated 1 million filled, as most economists had predicted.
As such, the unemployment figure actually ticked up one-tenth of one percent, from 6 percent to 6.1 percent. How is that possible?
How can there be a record number of jobs, but the unemployment rate rises? That's what happens when a Democrat-run Congress and presidency make it more lucrative for potential workers to stay at home.
Thanks "to Biden's Trillions...any - not just hard - work is punished and instead America's great unwashed masses are rewarded to do absolutely nothing," Zero Hedge reported recently.
“We should be clear about the policy failure at work here: There are 7,400,000 jobs open in the US — but fewer than 300,000 people found new work last month,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who sits on the Senate Budget and Finance committees, noted in a statement following the Labor Department report last week (notice how many more job openings there are this week from when he issued his statement.
“Why? This tragedy is what happens when Washington know-it-all’s decide to pretend they’re generous by paying more for unemployment than for work,” he added.
The latest 'COVID relief' bill adds $300 per week to state unemployment benefits. So if someone is drawing $500-$600 per week, on average, from their state, the federal stipend drives that up to $800-$900 per week, or more than $3,200 per month (roughly $39,000 per year). Why should anyone go to work when they can literally make as much or more staying home?
Granted, this option works best for people who aren't motivated to want to do better, but apparently that is a sizable plurality of Americans because there are job openings literally everywhere.
Economists and leading business groups know what's going on -- Democratic socialism. And it's going to destroy what remains of Middle America -- where most of the Republican support comes from.
"The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market," the Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.
"We need a comprehensive approach to dealing with our workforce issues and the very real threat unfilled positions poses to our economic recovery from the pandemic. One step policymakers should take now is ending the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit. Based on the Chamber’s analysis, the $300 benefit results in approximately one in four recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working," the business lobbying group added.
"Small business owners are competing with the pandemic and increased unemployment benefits that are keeping some workers out of the labor force," National Federation of Independent Businesses Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said. His organization added in a separate statement that "finding eligible workers to fill open positions will become increasingly difficult for small business owners."
Even legendary chef Wolfgang Puck gets it. “I don’t think we should pay people to stay home and not work if there are jobs available," he said, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But again, when the objective is to destroy your political base, these competing policies make perfect sense.
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