More than four million Americans voluntarily left their jobs in August amid what is supposed to be an economic comeback.
CNBC, citing the Labor Department, reported 4.3 million American workers voluntarily quit near the end of the summer. That means nearly three percent of the total workforce simply quit.
That’s a record not seen since December of the year 2000. CNBC reported the most affected sectors were food service, retail and health care.
Labor shortages in retail and food can be seen in many parts of the country, just pay attention when shopping or dining.
We wouldn’t be seeing any of this right now, if not for President Joe Biden and Democrats, whose dream of permanently expanding the socialist welfare state has been imagined to a large degree.
Could you imagine any of this happening under a second term of former President Donald Trump? The V-shaped recovery never had a chance, and next March we will have been subjected to two years of COVID restrictions — with the country’s jobs market still in disarray.
The last 19 or so months have changed the way many, many Americans view working. Even though the government well has dried up to a degree, companies simply can’t find or keep help. Who could argue it’s not because many Americans have gotten a taste of socialist giveaways?
Federal unemployment benefits ended for millions of Americans late this summer, but they arguably did more harm than good after the initial couple of months. Those who the state encouraged to do nothing except rely on the government’s social safety net presumably make up a large portion of those quitting their jobs.
They’re doing so at the expense of employers who are willing to pay workers relatively well for doing menial tasks. These people, in many cases, were paid state unemployment benefits and given an additional $300 per week from the federal government to stay home. They also received several stimulus checks, which those who were frugal saved.
These people made cash beyond their wildest dreams for more than a year — all for doing nothing.
Now that there are job openings everywhere, many of those who have chosen to return to work without a doubt believe they can simply quit without feeling the squeeze. If they were smart, they would have saved their money from government checks. Why would they grill burgers or stock shelves if they have cash and everywhere around them is hiring?
People who were accustomed to holding onto their jobs until something better came along now have options all around them as employers compete for labor.
During a causal conversation two weeks ago, a man told me he had nearly exhausted all of his state unemployment benefits. Was he worried about finding a job? In short, no.
He had yet to spend a dime of the three stimulus checks he had received since spring of 2020 when the CARES Act first appropriated him $1,200, he said. Assuming this man is single and childless, he received $1,200 from the CARES Act, $600 from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 and $1,400 from the American Rescue Plan.
Now, imagine this man had spent more than a year not paying rent because of an eviction moratorium while collecting weekly state and federal unemployment benefits and squirreling away $3,200 in stimulus giveaways.
If he had a child, in July he would have also been eligible for the monthly Advance Child Tax Credit payments from the IRS — and those previous stimulus payments would have been beefed up. This doesn’t even take into account whether or not he was using food stamps.
What a time it must be for the young, entitled and lazy. Still, these people didn’t force the government to close down the economy and give them all of this money.
The federal government has chosen the most reckless and destructive routes to both the coronavirus itself and the economy. Bureaucrats have destroyed businesses and killed jobs while simultaneously shattering the will to work for so many people who already didn’t want to report to their jobs before.
America is only in the beginning phase of socialism. Some people have benefited from it to a large degree while others have paid for it with their children’s futures or with their small businesses and savings.
Now, labor-short big business is feeling the strain of all the giveaways — and soon so will those who were paid and fed for doing nothing, as inflation depletes their cash reserves.
Inflation is now taxing everyone, including the willfully unemployed, but they likely still feel a sense of entitlement they never felt before. They’re going to stay out of the workforce or walk off of jobs until they no longer feel Uncle Sam has them covered while they do nothing.
But Uncle Sam keeps talking about opening up the checkbook again. As a result, some employers can’t keep workers in an economy with millions of job openings and millions of unemployed workers.