Labor shortages and Unemployment

Small businesses are being simultaneously crushed and propped up by Pandemic Unemployment Assistance

We should really have an actual discussion about unemployment and the labor shortage that it is causing. Both sides of the discussion are currently completely unproductive.

We have a problem that is unlikely to be solved in that many businesses that are surviving would fail if their customers didn't have this income, and many of those same businesses are being crushed because they cannot find employees.

The arguments from conservatives tend to be along the lines of “People need to just go back to work.”

However this in most cases is expecting people to go against their own self interests, which you shouldn't expect to happen. People especially during uncertain times are going to do what is best for themselves and their loved ones.

To which the answer from them is “Well we need to end assistance so that its in their self interest.”

But thats really not a great answer.

Even if we end covid restrictions right now we have countless businesses shuttered, material shortages, as well as shifts in demand as a result of them. That means that not everyone can just go back to work.

And if you just cut off the income being pumped in via unemployment the customers of these businesses that are already struggling to keep the lights on will have less to spend in them.

And while the ramifications of the rate of the dollar being printed and borrowed to pay for all of this will likely have catastrophic consequences its much too late to close pandora’s box. To stop it now would be a bit like cutting off your parachute because you see you are going to land in an active volcano.

The leftist approach isn’t better, and completely detached from reality in many cases.

When the left talks about the labor shortage you get:

"Businesses should just pay more if they want people to work"

And worse

"Businesses that don't pay more than unemployment are exploiting poverty"

That last particular line is what really prompted me to write this in the first place. Something about the absolute arrogance of an American who is being provided an income that puts them in the top 1% of the world or at least near it while benefiting from actual exploitation of poverty in other countries, having the audacity to say that people trying to keep their businesses afloat are trying to "exploit" them just set me off.

Its not just a matter of paying people more than unemployment, because you need to pay them enough that its worth giving up unemployment. If you can work a job that will pay you the equivalent of 5 dollars an hour more than you would receive just staying at home, many people are just going to stay home.

You also have to factor in the stability of the paycheck during uncertain times, are you going to put you or your families livelihood at stake to go work for a business that you know is struggling? If they go under who knows if you will get your unemployment back or not, it certainly wont be instant. It might not even be in the business owners hands. What if the government decides cases are getting too high and shut down entire industries again?

And I feel like this next part should be obvious, and the fact that many college educated individuals would hold this position shows how absolutely useless many universities actually are. How in the hell can you expect businesses that survived this long making less money to pay higher labor costs? Can you not do basic math?

The massive corporations the left used to pretend to oppose can of course borrow money that will be easier to repay later, and many of these loans will be forgiven. Smaller businesses on the other hand are just going to get fucked.

So is there a solution? Maybe, but none that have a chance in hell of being implemented.

Its not like we can go back in time, we can't undo the mess the government made here. Would people probably be better off if the government had never gotten involved in the first place? Yes. That's almost always the case.

So right now one option that comes to mind of what to do with the system in place is to just allow people to work without losing unemployment.

You can't expect people to work against their own self interests, its why communism fails every time its tried. There are definitely problems with giving the people the money either way, but at least if they aren't punished for working you aren't fighting against human nature.

If we are going to have the government offer a social safety net where they qualify for a set amount of help for a set period of time then why punish them by taking it away for being productive? Would it cost more? Yes, and it absolutely would be abused. But there is no way it would cost more than the overall loss of productivity the current system is causing.

Unfortunately I wouldn't expect a solution like this (or any other) to be implemented. Politicians are perfectly fine with letting this problem they created run its course and wipe out the little guy, because the little guy doesn't line their wallets. Most of the major corporations that these politicians are beholden to certainly aren't hurting from their competition being driven out of business. In fact we have seen the greatest transfer of wealth perhaps in human history into the pockets of the wealthiest among us as a result of the policies implemented to "save" us from covid-19. Don’t count on any changes from the establishment that could alter that profitable coincidence.