 So, as you may know, a couple of weeks ago, the pandemic-related unemployment insurance had run out. And you may be thinking, isn't that a little bit strange to have pandemic-related unemployment benefits expire right in the middle of a pandemic? And yeah, that's logical. I get it. But we were told that it was really good that this extra $300 per week would be going away because currently there's a job shortage and nobody wants to work because they're getting so much money on unemployment. But in actuality, this trope that welfare makes people lazy is actually wrong and it was disproven by data. So in theory, you would think that the states that ended their pandemic unemployment benefits early would see a boost in job growth, right? Yeah, you would think that if that were actually true, but the hypothesis was debunked by this headline. Taxios reports states that ended COVID unemployment benefits see no boost in job growth. I'm going to read that again. States that ended COVID unemployment benefits see no boost in job growth. Wait, so you're telling me that having a social safety net doesn't actually lead to people being lazier and that the job shortage doesn't necessarily have a direct connection to the $300 unemployment benefits that people were receiving as a result of the pandemic? Hmm, interesting. So Axios explains states that ended federal unemployment benefits earlier this summer saw August job growth at less than half the rate of states that retained the benefits according to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Leaders in the largely Republican-led states had insisted that the benefits were discouraging people from work and ended the assistance program early ahead of its planned expiration on September 6th. The benefits which came in the form of weekly $300 payments had been in place in spring last year to help families through the pandemic. A growing group of states began ending the benefits in June in what they called an effort to incentivize people to return to the workplace. But here's what they're saying. Economists analyzing the unemployment issue have seen little evidence yet that cutting off the benefits has provided a clear boost to local labor markets in part because of difficulty separating the influence of the payments from larger shifts in the labor force or of the potentially offsetting damage done by the pandemic. Reuters writes. So I mean, if you ask me, it might be a pretty good idea to reinstate those weekly benefits, because all you're doing is you're making people less off, giving them less of a cushion that they desperately need during a pandemic that is still very much going on. It's not solving the job shortage. It's just not. People relied on that and it was really cruel to take it away from them in hopes that you would help big businesses. Now, in terms of why there's a labor shortage, it's difficult to say, but there's a multitude of theories. Axios writer Hope King believes that there's a worker awakening that's happening in the country, which arguably contributed to a shift in power back to workers as described by Felix Salmon. And I think that that definitely has something to do with it. But the answer is probably pretty complicated. And I think it's important that we try to be nuanced here when talking about this. And there was one article that I think did a pretty good job at that. It was written by Emily Stewart and Ronnie Mala of Vox. And they really get into why there is this labor shortage. And, you know, it kind of goes both ways. There's a labor shortage, but a lot of people who are seeking employment are still having a difficult time finding a good job. So they explain, for some of the jobs available, people don't have the right skills or at least the skills employers say they're looking for. Other jobs are undesirable. They offer bad pay or an unpredictable schedule or just don't feel worth it to unemployed workers, many of whom are rethinking their priorities. In some cases, there are a host of perfectly acceptable candidates and jobs out there, but for a multitude of reasons, they're just not being matched. There are also workers who are hesitant to go back. They're nervous about COVID-19 or they have care responsibilities or something else is holding them back. The result is a disconnected environment that doesn't add up, though it feels like it should. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 8.4 million potential workers who are unemployed, but it also says there are record 10.9 million jobs open. The rate at which unemployed people are getting jobs is lower than it was pre-pandemic and it's taking longer to hire people. Meanwhile, job seekers say employers are unresponsive. So if we're being intellectually honest, then it's a range of issues here. This is a very complex issue and there's no simple answer. But if I could reduce this down to one solution, primarily for employers, it would be for them to stop being blood-sucking leeches and actually treat workers like human beings and then maybe they'd actually want to work for you. Now, again, it's an oversimplification, but when you consider the fact that a survey published on FlexJobs found that 46% of job seekers say they're only finding jobs that are low-paying. I mean, that says a lot. Nobody wants to work for a job where they're overworked and underpaid during a fucking pandemic. I mean, who wants to go and be a door greeter at Walmart where you have to enforce their mask policy and have Karen scream at you and cough in your faces? Like, this is a serious time. Like, like it or not, the pandemic is not over. So to expect people to lower their standards, it just doesn't make sense. So I mean, I think that part of the problem, not all of the issue, like not the totality of the issue here, but part of the problem, a large part of the problem, is that employers need to actually pay people good wages. And preferably the government, the Democratic Party, would force them to do that by raising them in a wage. But I mean, if they weren't so fucking shitty and authoritarian and actually were more flexible with workers' hours and gave them a consistent schedule and more options to work from home, maybe people would want to work for them. But to suggest that getting an extra $300 per week temporarily would prevent someone from taking a job that would benefit their lives in the long term, that's just unrealistic, it's absurd. Of course, that $300 was great. People who were on it, they desperately needed that, they relied on that, right? But if somebody saw a job that would be better for themselves long term, they're not going to choose to not take that job because that extra $300 per week is so good. They know it's temporary, they know it's gonna expire. So anyone who believed that this $300 per week extra was leading to this job shortage, I mean, at best it's an oversimplification, at worst, you're probably really naive to think that because people are complicated. People are looking out for themselves and their best long term financial interests of themselves and their families. So nobody wants to go back to work if it's gonna be for some shitty job where they're paid nothing and they have shitty hours, right? So I think that Democrats, knowing this data is out there now, they should reinstate that extra $300 per week. The Biden administration just kind of like, let it expire and put their hands up. But that's stupid. The pandemic is still going on and we should really be paying people to stay home, right? It's not like that extra $300 was leading to people not wanting to work, but really in truth, we should be paying people to stay home. We should be paying people to not work right now because the pandemic isn't going to go away if it continues to spread, if people are still forced to go into work. And this was the solution from the get go. Pay people to stay home. That's how you flatten the curve. That's how we could in theory do it again. But when you live in a late stage capitalist society, that's not even an option. It's not even something that people are considering. And that's kind of ridiculous, is it not? The idea that people should stay home and be paid so that way they're encouraged to stay home is outrageous to people. It's leading to people attacking our social safety net, suggesting that these unemployment benefits that people are getting during the pandemic is a bad thing. If employers are seeing a labor shortage and they expect people to want to work for them in the middle of a pandemic, then they need to do more, right? Meet them halfway maybe even. But that's not like the entire picture. Again, this is complicated, right? But what I know for sure is that to take away that extra $300 per week that people on unemployment were relying on, that's really cruel. And it's a failure of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration. This proved that the argument that was used as the rationale to get rid of those benefits, it was flawed, shocker. So give people that extra money because regardless of what your opinion is on this, we should be paying everyone to stay home right now. It's a pandemic, stay home, save lives. We should be doing that.