Through the pandemic, millions of essential workers have gone to work every day. All the while, millions lost their jobs or otherwise wound up on the unemployment welfare dole.
They found themselves on a benefits system that was absurdly augmented to pay many workers more than their jobs, with welfare paying up to $25 an hour in many states. At first, this state of dependency was certainly not the fault of the unemployed. But for many months now, there have been enormous labor demand and widely available, safe, effective vaccines against COVID-19, leaving little excuse for most of the idle lingering on the taxpayer dole.
The “temporary” expanded benefits have finally been allowed to lapse more than a year later, expiring on Sept. 6. To be clear, this doesn’t mean all unemployment benefits have ended, just that the unemployment welfare system has reverted to its pre-pandemic norms. But now, the welfare recipients who’ve enjoyed their year-plus taxpayer-funded vacation aren’t very happy. About 7.5 million people lost benefits after the federal augmentation lapsed, and they’re making their feelings known in media interviews.
“I’m very, very angry because this is an attempt, in my opinion, to force us all back to work in low-paying jobs, like in hospitality and retail, where people are treated like garbage by customers and by the companies they work for, where their work schedules change at the very last minute,” Massachusetts-based former dishwasher Lois Prew said. “It’s incredibly difficult for parents to find care at the last minute for their children.”
“To just cut people off, it’s ridiculous and it’s unethical and it’s evil,” New York-based photographer Travis Curry told the New York Times. “If we can’t buy food or go to local businesses because we don’t have money to live in New York, how will New York come back?”
“It just feels like being discarded,” former producer Kathleen Fox told the Washington Post. Fox complained that she was being forced to — gasp! — apply for jobs that pay less than she previously made. “The stress of everything has just caused me a lot of emotional distress that I didn’t have before.”
These particular individuals, quoted by left-of-center media outlets seeking to vilify the lapse in welfare benefits, are not outliers. At least 1.8 million people have chosen not to return to work due to ultragenerous benefits, polling shows, and that’s probably a huge underestimate. (People typically underreport socially stigmatized behavior when polled.)
We can debate the policy merits of the expanded unemployment all day. I, for one, have said since the beginning of the pandemic that disincentivizing work was terrible economic policy, with ample evidence later vindicating this position.
Surveys of businesses have consistently reported a labor shortage, with ultragenerous benefits being a key culprit. And 9 of the 10 states with the lowest July unemployment rates had ended the benefits. Moreover, new Mercatus Center research shows that states that ended the benefits early had twice the job growth compared to states that left them in place until Sept. 6.
My hot-off-the-presses research:
Federal UI benefits likely reduced job growth.
The states which ended participation in federal programs early showed 2x the job growth relative to the states which kept the programs in place through this week.https://t.co/QpCWnuDd5T— Michael D. Farren (@MichaelDFarren) September 3, 2021
But, still, there are good-faith policy arguments to be made in favor of expanded benefits or a larger welfare state. Yet there is not any justifiable moral outrage over no longer being allowed to leech off others on cash-flush welfare benefits.
Think about it like this. When an unemployed individual lingers on welfare benefits despite there being more than 10 million unfilled job openings, they are forcing working taxpayers to pay for their idleness. In the case of the truly disabled or disadvantaged, that’s one thing, but that does not describe most of these people. They openly say they want the benefits to continue because they’d rather not go back to unpleasant jobs or would prefer to hold out for jobs with higher wages.
This welfare mentality from the able-bodied is morally grotesque. It is laziness and entitlement of the highest order. They seek to force their fellow citizens to pay for their choice to remain unemployed. (Yes, when there are 1.2 unfilled jobs for every unemployed person, unemployment is, in most cases, a choice.) The complainants feel entitled to maintain spending levels and a lifestyle they could temporarily enjoy on ultragenerous expanded benefits.
The Right must not cede the moral high ground to liberals on this issue and simply retreat to fiscal concerns or economic arguments. Liberals can claim that it’s “unethical” or “evil” to roll back expanded unemployment benefits all they want. But it’s the victimhood mentality on display from able-bodied people who just don’t want to work that’s truly immoral.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and a Washington Examiner contributor. Subscribe to his YouTube channel or email him at [email protected].
