Workers Aren’t Lazy, Your Workplace Just Sucks
Complaints about people not taking low-paying jobs are based on bizarre logic and reveal the cruelty of conservatism
To hear some tell it, employers are currently struggling to fill job openings because unemployment insurance and pandemic relief funds have been far too generous. As such, people can make more sitting at home than getting off the couch, putting down the Cool Ranch Doritos, and punching a clock.
This is, of course, bullshit.
When unemployment benefits expanded last year, there was no independent effect on the labor market beyond the pandemic itself. Employment fell because businesses closed for health reasons, and there was a steep drop in consumer demand, not because employers couldn’t find workers due to generous government aid.
Then, when relief was cut after the federal add-on to state benefits expired, there was no measurable boost in job-seeking by those who had been relying on it. If benefits had kept people from work, the reduction should have pushed them back into the labor market, but it didn’t.
Just because there are more openings than people out of work doesn’t mean folks are refusing jobs out of laziness.
