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Montana to cancel unemployment benefits to address severe workforce shortage

147 points by awb 6y ago

diob 6y ago
I wish we could switch to not tying unemployment benefits so much to employment. I know that sounds funky, but the reason why they don't want your minimum wage job is then they lose the benefits (not just money, but things like food stamps, etc.). If they didn't lose their benefits, they'd work to gain some extra cash in addition to them. This is just cruel.
- praptak 6y ago
  That's universal basic income.
  - awb 6y ago
    No, OC is talking about benefits like food stamps, discount electricity, discount health insurance, etc. You would still have to work to earn money, you just wouldn’t lose your non-monetary benefits. It’s more like a universal social safety net.
    - akvadrako 6y ago
      You didn't read the OPs comment well. He said "not just money".
    - meheleventyone 6y ago
      This is just the government subsidising underwater businesses then? I feel like there’s this irrational impulse that work, any work is better than looking after someone until they can find good employment. If jobs are so poorly paid they can’t sustain the unfortunate person who has to take them perhaps they shouldn’t exist or at least be nationalised so society gets the benefits they are paying for rather than having them funnelled into the pockets of private individuals.
      - jonnycomputer 6y ago
        Yes. But that's why you also need a mandatory floor (a generous minimum wage), and strong labor institutions, so that companies don't just get to take advantage of the social support programs to support their exploitative business models.
        meheleventyone 6y ago
        Agreed there!
        calvano915 6y ago
        See this article https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-... as the most previously quantified and discussed example. Article title: Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance
nikanj 6y ago
If everyone has a job except you, unemployment is a lonely and depressing endeavour. If the majority of your friend circle is unemployed, it becomes something different. In Canada with CERB ($400/week), it's been like being a school kid on summer break all over again. You have very little money, but can spend endless days reconnecting with your friends, hiking, playing games, learning music, et cetera. Not many people want to get a job - as it's just as fun as being the only kid in your group who got a job at 17. You might be making money, but everyone else is making out at the midnight bonfire
- Archio 6y ago
  >You have very little money, but can spend endless days reconnecting with your friends, hiking, playing games, learning music, et cetera. The horror! Sounds like these employers need to raise wages to do better than the absolute minimum. If higher paying jobs are available, people will work. And some people still won't, but those people weren't going to work much anyway.
  - nikanj 6y ago
    I wasn't saying it's horrible, I was trying to explain why people choose to remain unemployed. Setting the right level for benefits is hard: Either the basic income is high enough to provide for a good life (why would I get a job), or it's not high enough to pay for food, shelter, bills (why do we treat our unemployed people this badly). Rising the wages across the board raises prices sooner or later. That probably moves the unemployment money from the former category to the latter via inflation, which does motivate people to get a job, but screws the people who can't get a job. I have no solutions to offer. This is a gnarly problem, featured for example in the Grasshopper and the Ant, first recorded in Aesop's fables from ~600BC. Enjoying life is wonderful, but if everyone enjoys life, we'll all starve.
    - aspaviento 6y ago
      > Enjoying life is wonderful, but if everyone enjoys life, we'll all starve. Maybe the solution is in the middle: make work time as little as possible so people who work can also enjoy life and pay them according to that time.
curiousgal 6y ago
I mean it is a red state and this seems in line with Republican talking points. I am actually surprised to see it implemented because people usually just complain about "unemployed people getting help from the state" so I guess good for them for actually walking the walk (even though the policy is baseless of course). The election turnout was over 80% so there's that too.
- murph-almighty 6y ago
  I struggle to have sympathy for people who elect leopards and get surprised when their face is eaten.
pauljurczak 6y ago
How about raising wages to attract employment? Where is the invisible hand when you need it? Is it a workforce shortage or a pay rate shortage?
- toxik 6y ago
  I hear this argument quite often, but it IS the market’s will. In fact, if the market got what it wanted, many towns and villages would just not be viable. My point is not that minimum wage is bad, but rather, redistribution of wealth is necessary.
  - fridif 6y ago
    Who are we redistributing it from? It seems it is always the not overly secure people who have to have their wealth redistributed.
    - c2h5oh 6y ago
      If a breaking point is reached any wealth is distributed. Violently, inefficiently and unfairly, but all of it. Where do you think the support for communism came from in early XX century?
    - taurath 6y ago
      Which proposal is that? The ones about putting more taxes on people making over $400,000 a year?
      - fridif 6y ago
        With inflation and cost of living rising so much, is 400k pretax really "insanely rich"? I can barely afford my house and car, which middle class people of 50 years ago had no issues affording. Aren't there many more people out there making 50M a year who should be targeted before I am targeted?
    - toxik 6y ago
      Wealth redistribution to support small towns would be taken from large cities. Large cities are typically enormously profitable. Wealth redistribution to support poor people would be taken from businesses. This is a typical social welfare model.
praptak 6y ago
Hurray for employers who pay so little that they cannot even compete with the unemployment benefits.
- nsonha 6y ago
  what? Competing with free money isn't like that. Would you say paying double the free money but also take up half of people's time, plus other hassles they have to put up with, is a good deal?
  - joosters 6y ago
    Of course it is, particularly if (as is likely), the unemployment benefits aren't enough to get by on. Having all the free time in the world is no use if you still can't afford to eat or put a roof over your family.
  - taurath 6y ago
    That sounds much better. You could spend your extra time and money to go to college or trade school instead of going into debt, or at least not have an insurmountable debt if you don’t get a good job after.
  - c2h5oh 6y ago
    Considering both unemployment benefits and minimum wage are not enough to pay rent for a single bedroom apartment in every single state in US then yeah, I'd say quite a few of people would consider it at better deal.
    - parineum 6y ago
      Unemployment is currently more than paying my mortgage in California.
      - c2h5oh 6y ago
        If you were making minimum wage in California your state unemployment benefits would have been $267 per week. With federal covid aid that would have gone up to $567 - close to California minimum wage, but just short of it. I welcome you to try to pay rent/mortgage + afford food with that much money.
CyberRabbi 6y ago
With the amount of unemployment being disbursed it’s looking like Congress won’t even need to pass a $15 min wage bill anymore. Employers will be forced to raise wages to compete. This is a lever of which up to now I was unaware.
- banbanbang 6y ago
  They have to raise due to inflation regardless. A lot of people didn’t even receive COLA for the past couple of years.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    That's kind of how we got into this mess in the first place - employers not giving COLA over decades.
    - calvano915 6y ago
      That's because company owners and shareholders did all the hard work and deserve any increases in profits. /s
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I've always found it weird when countries have big gaps between benefits and minimum wages. It's basically saying "you can only have 2 dollars an hour from us, but you can't have less than 10 from them, hmmm I hope no one cheats on this system...".
- ZoomerCretin 6y ago
  Employers are probably waiting for the pandemic and unemployment insurance to end so they don’t have to raise wages to attract workers to these now-hazardous working conditions, as it’s hard to walk back wage raises. Every employer benefits from a society where everyone pays their employees more, but also if they are the only employer to pay their own employees as little as they can get away with. Yes, the minimum wage does need to be hiked (arguably not to $15/hour), as it’s in the best interest of both employees and workers.
a3n 6y ago
> Montana's unemployment rate was 3.8% in March, down from its 11.9% pandemic peak in April 2020, according to data by the Labor Department. Politicians used to brag about those levels being full employment.
- creshal 6y ago
  OECD defines a "healthy full employment" rate to be 4-6% unemployment, so the labour pool is unhealthily low already.
  - s3tz 6y ago
    Is it measured the same way though?
  - c2h5oh 6y ago
    Unemployed are defined as "[..] people of working age who are without work, are available for work, and have taken specific steps to find work." The question is how many people exited the workforce, because both unemployment benefits and minimum wage offer payments that just barely allow them not to starve to death. Normally people would be incentivized to find work, because even minimum wage would offer a significant upgrade over unemployment benefits, but since minimum wage is so abysmally low they couldn't have set unemployment benefits much lower or people would have literally starved. The sane solution of increasing minimum wage to incentivize people to find jobs while obvious is not very popular with wealthy political donors.
  - jollybean 6y ago
    That 4-6% is 'healthy' definitely does not mean that lower rates are 'unhealthy'.
    - prepend 6y ago
      It means they are not healthy, that is different but probably the same intent.
    - creshal 6y ago
johnchristopher 6y ago
I am not from the USA and I read the article to understand a bit more how unemployment benefits work in the US. I find the title misleading, it's the pandemic $300 per week additional benefit that gets suspended not the whole unemployment benefits people looking for a job are entitled to (Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program). Correct me if I am wrong. Now, is the situation back to normal enough to justify it, should those unemployment benefits stay the same, etc. those are all important questions.
- calvano915 6y ago
  You are correct. The question is what MT pays for their UI as every state has different amounts and weeks per claim. As to whether the extra $300 should continue, I would be in favor of allowing it for those that can prove they are searching for work and not getting hired. Others not searching or not accepting offers should lose their benefits.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway_kufu 6y ago
Looks like everyone has already forgotten about the CARES act and how it was divided. $266B went to unemployment and $377B to small businesses, of course the law makers were going to end the program and force people back into low paying jobs with no alternative to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. Biden said all along he lead the last economic recovery, and he did...on paper. Following 2008 he helped devise a system of removing people from the unemployment numbers once their benefits expired and even though many never returned to work they were swept under the rug and poof 5% unemployment. That’s what this is, and you can be sure Montana will be championing the policy and highlighting record levels of unemployment, but the reality is those “lucky” enough to get a job will return to a shit job, living paycheck to paycheck, unable to afford a $400 emergency expense (as was the case pre-pandemic) and record numbers of people will be written off as if they never existed. It sounds like a tinfoil conspiracy theory, but it’s something we saw in 2008 and already seen multiple times policy decisions during the pandemic. Meanwhile the people will continue to point the fingers at one another and debate in forums like this, not realizing or simply unable to accept the suffering in this dystopia. #Dogetothemoon
- imtringued 6y ago
  Interesting, I suspected as much. Japan has extremely low unemployment but the low inflation (historical rate pre covid) indicates that the jobs are not being paid a high salary. In other words, a lot of the people are still underemployed. I can believe that unemployment numbers are easy to game and that politicians mess with them in a non productive way.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Biden didn't come up with the U-3 unemployment rate, just like every administration they used it because it improves even when the economy isn't adding jobs. It's not a serious number. The only number that counts is the prime-age employment rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 The stupid thing that Biden (and Obama) brag about is having the longest recovery in history. What that really means is the slowest revovery in history. You can't say that the Dems didn't learn their lesson, though - the money spigot is turned on this time, and if they pull it off the economy after the pandemic will be better than the one before it.
kasey_junk 6y ago
If you read the underlying report that drove the unemployment pull quote you can see they spend a lot of time explaining that the labor shortage is driven by an increase in the population not looking for work. It speculates that increase is attributable to obvious pandemic causes like needing to provide child care, deal with sick family or older family. https://lmi.mt.gov/_docs/Publications/LMI-Pubs/Labor-Market-Publications/EAG-0321.pdf https://lmi.mt.gov/_docs/Publications/LMI-Pubs/Labor-Market-... Missoula public schools were still operating with a remote day per week when those numbers were collected, it’s really hard to work with a young kid in need of care an extra day per week. So it’s not surprising the workforce size reduced. In light of this, this change seems particularly cruel.
- addicted 6y ago
  Who needs evidence when you have ideology.
  - silicon2401 6y ago
    This is a surprisingly insightful phrase in this day and age. So much can be explained by this, at least when it comes to human and societal behavior
  - jl2718 6y ago
    > It speculates ... I can’t tell which ‘side’ you are referring to.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      This bill is clearly not one that is particularly compassionate. They're not creating new social safety nets. Do you really need us to spell it out?
      - floatingatoll 6y ago
        I’ll spell it out for the unaware, especially those in non-US countries that lack context. There’s a lot of assumptions built into this summary, and it is not clear whether it’s fully accurate or not, but it does help convey the viewpoint you’re referring to in a more comprehensive fashion. America was and continues to be built in large part by wage theft and labor exploitation. We don’t provide the social support services that are taken for granted in first-world countries like Canada, because doing so conflicts with the strongly-held belief — the ideology — that the best way to support the poor is to ensure that they’re employed in a job, no matter how terrible the working conditions or pay. Workers are told that this is a “ladder of success”, but upward mobility has stalled due to the wealth being drained out of the system into the ultra-wealthy and their families. Workers are encouraged to work for local businesses, who are themselves going bankrupt and collapsing at the swordpoints of Walmart, Amazon, and Covid. Health care costs have skyrocketed, health insurance is only offered to a subset of the workforce, and minimum wage doesn’t cover rent, food, and health care (pick one only). So, Montana is canceling unemployment as a way to force people to work at jobs they otherwise wouldn’t work at. This forces people back into the modern enslavement system, and takes for granted that enough employers are left in Montana to hire those workers. Rather than assessing whether enough jobs exist for their citizens and then requiring businesses to pay a reasonable wage that covers living costs, or offering benefits to attract workers, the state of Montana will simply block unemployment benefits. Employers that offer miserable wages, no health insurance, and poor working conditions are expected to see an increase in workers applying for those roles, further weakening the negotiating position of workers versus employers. The best analogy, then, for the perceived cruelty of these motivations is, in these modified words of the consultant from “Office Space”: “We fixed the glitch. So they won’t be receiving an unemployment check anymore. So it’ll just work itself out naturally.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is
eric4smith 6y ago
By nature, we humans are very lazy. If I could sit all day and do what I liked instead of writing code, I'd do that instead. Sure, I love to write code. But I want to write the code that gives the joy. Not the code that some client wants me to write. That being said, ending the unemployment benefits is the right move.It's not sustainable. I worry greatly that we're entering a time when the government is going to become our dad/mom and we don't have to work. But then, where will the money come from??? We can only tax the rich so much.
- banbanbang 6y ago
  I absolutely disagree. Most people are driven and seek creative outlets. This is evident when you observe children. We have to evolve away from a production-based economy to one that is knowledge-based.
- eplanit 6y ago
  > I worry greatly that we're entering a time when the government is going to become our dad/mom and we don't have to. Unfortunately, that's exactly the goal for too many people anymore.
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
  Wait you are concerned that the government is becoming too much like a parent figure but you also think the correct role of the government is to tell people to do their homework?
- vharuck 6y ago
  As evidence against the idea that people left to their own devices will not work to the benefit of society, I present all progress in human history. At no point was there something other than a human leading governments or industries. The real question is, how many of these driven people do we actually need, and what are the proper ways to let work with the other people.
  - eric4smith 6y ago
    It would only take 20% The other 80% would work for them. The 80/20 rule in principle. Yes, sounds bad, but that the world that we live in.
minikites 6y ago
There's only a "worker shortage" because wages are low. There wouldn't be a "shortage" if these businesses actually paid decent wages. https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1390011074179645444 https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/139001107417964544... >Most of these restaurant and retail owners can clearly pay more if they want but they are worried about the precedent and they know if they ban together and whine to a compliant media enough and fake like people won’t get cheeseburgers politicians will pull UI and social programs https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1390019438817185798 https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/139001943881718579... >Here we detail the long history of industry trade groups in nursing, education, trucking, construction & dozens of industries shaping media narratives of “worker shortages”. covid just supercharged this decades old PR gambit with an added kicker of pressuring govt to suspend UI
- COGlory 6y ago
  The Wendy's in Bozeman starts at $17. The McDonald's there starts at $15.50. I know of people working at a clothing store (Athleta) making $22. I think you're extremely off the mark with this comment.
  - minikites 6y ago
    Are you asserting that the monetary value of unemployment benefits exceeds the full time salary of those jobs? It's easily possible that the the majority of local employers pay much less than that and are threatened by UI. Does every local business pay that well or just the corporate chains (which have additional wage pressures and other nationwide factors)?
    - josephcsible 6y ago
      You can't meaningfully compare just the monetary amounts, since the jobs require you to get up and go to work every day, and the unemployment benefits don't.
      - minikites 6y ago
jl2718 6y ago
“and disproportionately harms ...” Okay, let’s hear the proportions then. We’re talking about unemployment in Montana.
orasis 6y ago
Montana resident here. I won’t comment in the wisdom of the policy itself, but I will say that people avoiding work due to CoVid benefits is a very real thing. It’s widely considered wise to go hunting and play video games rather than go to work.
- falcolas 6y ago
  Montana resident here. That’s anecdotal bullshit.
  - listless 6y ago
    TN here with another anecdote that says it isn’t. Spoke to someone just recently who said they’ll stay on unemployment as long as they are allowed because they haven’t had to work in over a year and get to spend their time playing their favorite video games. Which, if you make as much unemployed as you do employed, it makes no sense to return to work. He’s not a bad person. He’s just optimizing.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      So these are all people who make less than $2000 a month. That's $12 an hour.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        That's above minimum wage, isn't it (I don't know if it's different over there, but I expect it's not >$12)?
        alienthrowaway 6y ago
        There are two ways to solve this "problem" (if you consider it to be one). Either cut the benefits, or raise the minimum wage (or pay above minimum wage). Personally, I'd rather have people dicking around, hunting and playing video games and having fun, rather than working at a soul-sucking mimimum-wage job and still be on the state's teat (getting food stamps) because the minimim wage is too low.
kwdc 6y ago
Seems cruel to me. Especially if you need a part time job because of family commitments. Plenty of full time jobs are actively hostile to working parents. Perhaps dealing with that issue first would help? Or is this really just about punishing those who can't fight back as hard? Probably. Edit: unemployed people are easy targets in order to appear tough in politics. Its great for later campaigning.
- falcolas 6y ago
  This is the governer who received support for assaulting a reporter while campaigning.
  - kwdc 6y ago
    Assault on reporter https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/us/politics/greg-gianforte-sentenced.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/us/politics/greg-gianfort... Anger management course. Community service of 40 hours. And some other issues on top, including some bending of the truth? Wow. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/17/greg-gianforte-guardian-reporter-ben-jacobs-assault https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/17/greg-gianfor...
jguimont 6y ago
One better long term solution is to raise salaries. Raising the hourly wage will help fill in some employment. Yes there are side effects to that (raising prices is one), but anything else is pushing a problem forward.
- bearjaws 6y ago
  Here in Florida many restaurant owners are complaining that no one is coming back. What even more hilarious is, they are offering $200 sign on bonuses to work in their restaurant. Meanwhile Wawa (a gas station chain) is offering $500 bonus + 1 day PTO when you get your vaccine AND $75 to get your vaccine. Gee I wonder why someone isn't signing up to a $200 bonus to get paid hopefully $8 an hour after tips!
  - jonnycomputer 6y ago
    Like when the employer says, no, you aren't getting a raise, but here is a one time $1000 bonus. Taking advantage of people's delay discounting ... otoh, in the context where you do not feel like you can count on keeping the job, then bonuses become more appealing than incremental wage increases.
skynet-9000 6y ago
If the U.S. were to double the minimum wage from $7 to $15, it would make sense to invest in robotics firms, or perhaps the largest fast food chains like McDonald's. Why? Because lower-price restaurants would have a choice: dramatically raise their food prices (which would almost certainly drive inflation across the board as everyone in all industries would hopefully see raises to deal with increased costs of living) or try to minimize the hit. If the latter, this would set off an immediate price war, even if unintentional, because McDonald's especially would strive to keep their prices from changing as little as possible. Then, the smaller chains that couldn't afford to reduce their workforce and/or invest in efficiency or robotics wouldn't survive. You would see less competitive chains like Popeye's closing up on Interstate exits, and their marketshare would be handed over to the larger chains. The unintended consequences of a massive shift like that would be enormous, and it would absolutely result in a stronger national chains and probably destroy or badly harm local eateries -- especially the ones that were trying to be price competitive. Get ready to see your local small businesses under severe pressure, while profitable operations like McDonald's and Chik-Fil-A will mop up the smaller places, and this is across the board at any low-skill, low-wage places, not just restaurants.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Wages are not 100% of current food prices. I don't know what they are, but it isn't 100%, which is what it would take to require doubling prices to cover doubled wages.
  - skynet-9000 6y ago
    That is true, but it is why I said "nearly". The largest cost in any fast food restaurant is almost certainly labor.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Labor costs are obviously not nearly 100% of revenue, no one would bother operating a franchise.
urtens 6y ago
Anybody thought of increasing the minimum wage instead?
- josephcsible 6y ago
  I don't think this would help, since there's already a lot of businesses offering significantly over minimum wage that are still having trouble finding employees.
loudtieblahblah 6y ago
maybe all the rioters will go back to flipping burgers and bagging groceries now.
pessimizer 6y ago
Paying enough unemployment for people to survive damages the reserve army of the unemployed. It's important to remember that capitalists and communists basically agree on most economic points, they just disagree on the most ethical distribution of resources.
konaraddi 6y ago
It looks like Montana believes their unemployment benefits are too generous. I suspect the real issue here is that low-end employers should be paying more. Montana intends to get rid of some people’s best option (unemployment benefits) and is hoping it will force those people to go with their next best alternative; a job that pays less than the previous unemployment benefits. I’m not sure the one-time bonus makes up for it. Regardless: “Different papers have established that the extra $600 in benefits distributed earlier in the pandemic had limited labor supply effects and likely didn’t disincentivize work, including one by the National Bureau of Economic Research and another by Yale University. The current supplemental benefit is worth half of what those papers reviewed.”
- jl2718 6y ago
  > Job that pays less than unemployment benefits.... Yeah that’s pretty much exactly why they reduced unemployment benefits. You seriously think it’s a good idea to pay people more to do nothing than they would get for their best option for doing something useful for somebody else? You know the money comes from other people, right? Other people that work. And if they refuse to pay, they get arrested, and if they refuse arrest, they get shot. So, given that the potential punishment for work includes death, why would anybody do that? I mean, somebody has to, right?
  - konaraddi 6y ago
    > You seriously think it’s a good idea to pay people more to do nothing than they would get for their best option for doing something useful for somebody else? Nah, please consider re-reading my comment in its entirety. The comment that I’m replying to is taking a sentence out of context, creating a straw man out of it, and then attacking it. > You know the money comes from other people, right? Yeah, definitely > And if they refuse to pay, they get arrested, and if they refuse arrest, they get shot. So, given that the potential punishment for work includes death, why would anybody do that? Bit of a slippery slope (tax evasion, in the US, usually doesn’t lead to death at the hands of law enforcement) but yea, I agree with the sentiment here. Avoiding arrest is good (barring any justified civil disobedience)
Avshalom 6y ago
OH WAIT. https://www.mtpr.org/post/industry-experts-talk-about-challenges-opportunities-address-montana-s-labor-shortage https://www.mtpr.org/post/industry-experts-talk-about-challe... I knew I remembered this. There was a damn "labor shortage" in Montana before the pandemic.
udev 6y ago
This is a sub-optimal solution. If you want real results, just make being unemployed illegal. No need to increase salaries... so is perfect!
- jl2718 6y ago
  Well it’s already illegal to keep more than about half of your own work, so this is the logical next step.
salawat 6y ago
Sounds to me like labor wage expectations have gone up, and businesses aren't reacting accordingly. As I recall, many minimum wage-$13 an hour jobs find better returns on unemployment benefits than actually working. (I don't see this as a problem with the government program either; wage theft is a real thing).
LorenPechtel 6y ago
I wonder how many of the people not working are long covid cases.
lamontcg 6y ago
Back to the salt mines, slaves.

147 points by awb 6y ago

diob 6y ago

I wish we could switch to not tying unemployment benefits so much to employment. I know that sounds funky, but the reason why they don't want your minimum wage job is then they lose the benefits (not just money, but things like food stamps, etc.). If they didn't lose their benefits, they'd work to gain some extra cash in addition to them. This is just cruel.

praptak 6y ago
That's universal basic income.
- awb 6y ago
  No, OC is talking about benefits like food stamps, discount electricity, discount health insurance, etc. You would still have to work to earn money, you just wouldn’t lose your non-monetary benefits. It’s more like a universal social safety net.
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    You didn't read the OPs comment well. He said "not just money".
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    This is just the government subsidising underwater businesses then? I feel like there’s this irrational impulse that work, any work is better than looking after someone until they can find good employment. If jobs are so poorly paid they can’t sustain the unfortunate person who has to take them perhaps they shouldn’t exist or at least be nationalised so society gets the benefits they are paying for rather than having them funnelled into the pockets of private individuals.
    - jonnycomputer 6y ago
      Yes. But that's why you also need a mandatory floor (a generous minimum wage), and strong labor institutions, so that companies don't just get to take advantage of the social support programs to support their exploitative business models.
      - meheleventyone 6y ago
        Agreed there!
      - calvano915 6y ago
        See this article https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-... as the most previously quantified and discussed example. Article title: Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance

nikanj 6y ago

If everyone has a job except you, unemployment is a lonely and depressing endeavour. If the majority of your friend circle is unemployed, it becomes something different. In Canada with CERB ($400/week), it's been like being a school kid on summer break all over again. You have very little money, but can spend endless days reconnecting with your friends, hiking, playing games, learning music, et cetera. Not many people want to get a job - as it's just as fun as being the only kid in your group who got a job at 17. You might be making money, but everyone else is making out at the midnight bonfire

Archio 6y ago
>You have very little money, but can spend endless days reconnecting with your friends, hiking, playing games, learning music, et cetera. The horror! Sounds like these employers need to raise wages to do better than the absolute minimum. If higher paying jobs are available, people will work. And some people still won't, but those people weren't going to work much anyway.
- nikanj 6y ago
  I wasn't saying it's horrible, I was trying to explain why people choose to remain unemployed. Setting the right level for benefits is hard: Either the basic income is high enough to provide for a good life (why would I get a job), or it's not high enough to pay for food, shelter, bills (why do we treat our unemployed people this badly). Rising the wages across the board raises prices sooner or later. That probably moves the unemployment money from the former category to the latter via inflation, which does motivate people to get a job, but screws the people who can't get a job. I have no solutions to offer. This is a gnarly problem, featured for example in the Grasshopper and the Ant, first recorded in Aesop's fables from ~600BC. Enjoying life is wonderful, but if everyone enjoys life, we'll all starve.
  - aspaviento 6y ago
    > Enjoying life is wonderful, but if everyone enjoys life, we'll all starve. Maybe the solution is in the middle: make work time as little as possible so people who work can also enjoy life and pay them according to that time.

curiousgal 6y ago

I mean it is a red state and this seems in line with Republican talking points. I am actually surprised to see it implemented because people usually just complain about "unemployed people getting help from the state" so I guess good for them for actually walking the walk (even though the policy is baseless of course). The election turnout was over 80% so there's that too.

murph-almighty 6y ago
I struggle to have sympathy for people who elect leopards and get surprised when their face is eaten.

pauljurczak 6y ago

How about raising wages to attract employment? Where is the invisible hand when you need it? Is it a workforce shortage or a pay rate shortage?

toxik 6y ago
I hear this argument quite often, but it IS the market’s will. In fact, if the market got what it wanted, many towns and villages would just not be viable. My point is not that minimum wage is bad, but rather, redistribution of wealth is necessary.
- fridif 6y ago
  Who are we redistributing it from? It seems it is always the not overly secure people who have to have their wealth redistributed.
  - c2h5oh 6y ago
    If a breaking point is reached any wealth is distributed. Violently, inefficiently and unfairly, but all of it. Where do you think the support for communism came from in early XX century?
  - taurath 6y ago
    Which proposal is that? The ones about putting more taxes on people making over $400,000 a year?
    - fridif 6y ago
      With inflation and cost of living rising so much, is 400k pretax really "insanely rich"? I can barely afford my house and car, which middle class people of 50 years ago had no issues affording. Aren't there many more people out there making 50M a year who should be targeted before I am targeted?
  - toxik 6y ago
    Wealth redistribution to support small towns would be taken from large cities. Large cities are typically enormously profitable. Wealth redistribution to support poor people would be taken from businesses. This is a typical social welfare model.

praptak 6y ago

Hurray for employers who pay so little that they cannot even compete with the unemployment benefits.

nsonha 6y ago
what? Competing with free money isn't like that. Would you say paying double the free money but also take up half of people's time, plus other hassles they have to put up with, is a good deal?
- joosters 6y ago
  Of course it is, particularly if (as is likely), the unemployment benefits aren't enough to get by on. Having all the free time in the world is no use if you still can't afford to eat or put a roof over your family.
- taurath 6y ago
  That sounds much better. You could spend your extra time and money to go to college or trade school instead of going into debt, or at least not have an insurmountable debt if you don’t get a good job after.
- c2h5oh 6y ago
  Considering both unemployment benefits and minimum wage are not enough to pay rent for a single bedroom apartment in every single state in US then yeah, I'd say quite a few of people would consider it at better deal.
  - parineum 6y ago
    Unemployment is currently more than paying my mortgage in California.
    - c2h5oh 6y ago
      If you were making minimum wage in California your state unemployment benefits would have been $267 per week. With federal covid aid that would have gone up to $567 - close to California minimum wage, but just short of it. I welcome you to try to pay rent/mortgage + afford food with that much money.

CyberRabbi 6y ago

With the amount of unemployment being disbursed it’s looking like Congress won’t even need to pass a $15 min wage bill anymore. Employers will be forced to raise wages to compete. This is a lever of which up to now I was unaware.

banbanbang 6y ago
They have to raise due to inflation regardless. A lot of people didn’t even receive COLA for the past couple of years.
- giantg2 6y ago
  That's kind of how we got into this mess in the first place - employers not giving COLA over decades.
  - calvano915 6y ago
    That's because company owners and shareholders did all the hard work and deserve any increases in profits. /s
LatteLazy 6y ago
I've always found it weird when countries have big gaps between benefits and minimum wages. It's basically saying "you can only have 2 dollars an hour from us, but you can't have less than 10 from them, hmmm I hope no one cheats on this system...".
ZoomerCretin 6y ago
Employers are probably waiting for the pandemic and unemployment insurance to end so they don’t have to raise wages to attract workers to these now-hazardous working conditions, as it’s hard to walk back wage raises. Every employer benefits from a society where everyone pays their employees more, but also if they are the only employer to pay their own employees as little as they can get away with. Yes, the minimum wage does need to be hiked (arguably not to $15/hour), as it’s in the best interest of both employees and workers.

a3n 6y ago

> Montana's unemployment rate was 3.8% in March, down from its 11.9% pandemic peak in April 2020, according to data by the Labor Department. Politicians used to brag about those levels being full employment.

creshal 6y ago
OECD defines a "healthy full employment" rate to be 4-6% unemployment, so the labour pool is unhealthily low already.
- s3tz 6y ago
  Is it measured the same way though?
- c2h5oh 6y ago
  Unemployed are defined as "[..] people of working age who are without work, are available for work, and have taken specific steps to find work." The question is how many people exited the workforce, because both unemployment benefits and minimum wage offer payments that just barely allow them not to starve to death. Normally people would be incentivized to find work, because even minimum wage would offer a significant upgrade over unemployment benefits, but since minimum wage is so abysmally low they couldn't have set unemployment benefits much lower or people would have literally starved. The sane solution of increasing minimum wage to incentivize people to find jobs while obvious is not very popular with wealthy political donors.
- jollybean 6y ago
  That 4-6% is 'healthy' definitely does not mean that lower rates are 'unhealthy'.
  - prepend 6y ago
    It means they are not healthy, that is different but probably the same intent.
  - creshal 6y ago

johnchristopher 6y ago

I am not from the USA and I read the article to understand a bit more how unemployment benefits work in the US. I find the title misleading, it's the pandemic $300 per week additional benefit that gets suspended not the whole unemployment benefits people looking for a job are entitled to (Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program). Correct me if I am wrong. Now, is the situation back to normal enough to justify it, should those unemployment benefits stay the same, etc. those are all important questions.

calvano915 6y ago
You are correct. The question is what MT pays for their UI as every state has different amounts and weeks per claim. As to whether the extra $300 should continue, I would be in favor of allowing it for those that can prove they are searching for work and not getting hired. Others not searching or not accepting offers should lose their benefits.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

throwaway_kufu 6y ago

Looks like everyone has already forgotten about the CARES act and how it was divided. $266B went to unemployment and $377B to small businesses, of course the law makers were going to end the program and force people back into low paying jobs with no alternative to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. Biden said all along he lead the last economic recovery, and he did...on paper. Following 2008 he helped devise a system of removing people from the unemployment numbers once their benefits expired and even though many never returned to work they were swept under the rug and poof 5% unemployment. That’s what this is, and you can be sure Montana will be championing the policy and highlighting record levels of unemployment, but the reality is those “lucky” enough to get a job will return to a shit job, living paycheck to paycheck, unable to afford a $400 emergency expense (as was the case pre-pandemic) and record numbers of people will be written off as if they never existed. It sounds like a tinfoil conspiracy theory, but it’s something we saw in 2008 and already seen multiple times policy decisions during the pandemic. Meanwhile the people will continue to point the fingers at one another and debate in forums like this, not realizing or simply unable to accept the suffering in this dystopia. #Dogetothemoon

imtringued 6y ago
Interesting, I suspected as much. Japan has extremely low unemployment but the low inflation (historical rate pre covid) indicates that the jobs are not being paid a high salary. In other words, a lot of the people are still underemployed. I can believe that unemployment numbers are easy to game and that politicians mess with them in a non productive way.
pessimizer 6y ago
Biden didn't come up with the U-3 unemployment rate, just like every administration they used it because it improves even when the economy isn't adding jobs. It's not a serious number. The only number that counts is the prime-age employment rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 The stupid thing that Biden (and Obama) brag about is having the longest recovery in history. What that really means is the slowest revovery in history. You can't say that the Dems didn't learn their lesson, though - the money spigot is turned on this time, and if they pull it off the economy after the pandemic will be better than the one before it.

kasey_junk 6y ago

If you read the underlying report that drove the unemployment pull quote you can see they spend a lot of time explaining that the labor shortage is driven by an increase in the population not looking for work. It speculates that increase is attributable to obvious pandemic causes like needing to provide child care, deal with sick family or older family. https://lmi.mt.gov/_docs/Publications/LMI-Pubs/Labor-Market-Publications/EAG-0321.pdf https://lmi.mt.gov/_docs/Publications/LMI-Pubs/Labor-Market-... Missoula public schools were still operating with a remote day per week when those numbers were collected, it’s really hard to work with a young kid in need of care an extra day per week. So it’s not surprising the workforce size reduced. In light of this, this change seems particularly cruel.

addicted 6y ago
Who needs evidence when you have ideology.
- silicon2401 6y ago
  This is a surprisingly insightful phrase in this day and age. So much can be explained by this, at least when it comes to human and societal behavior
- jl2718 6y ago
  > It speculates ... I can’t tell which ‘side’ you are referring to.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    This bill is clearly not one that is particularly compassionate. They're not creating new social safety nets. Do you really need us to spell it out?
    - floatingatoll 6y ago
      I’ll spell it out for the unaware, especially those in non-US countries that lack context. There’s a lot of assumptions built into this summary, and it is not clear whether it’s fully accurate or not, but it does help convey the viewpoint you’re referring to in a more comprehensive fashion. America was and continues to be built in large part by wage theft and labor exploitation. We don’t provide the social support services that are taken for granted in first-world countries like Canada, because doing so conflicts with the strongly-held belief — the ideology — that the best way to support the poor is to ensure that they’re employed in a job, no matter how terrible the working conditions or pay. Workers are told that this is a “ladder of success”, but upward mobility has stalled due to the wealth being drained out of the system into the ultra-wealthy and their families. Workers are encouraged to work for local businesses, who are themselves going bankrupt and collapsing at the swordpoints of Walmart, Amazon, and Covid. Health care costs have skyrocketed, health insurance is only offered to a subset of the workforce, and minimum wage doesn’t cover rent, food, and health care (pick one only). So, Montana is canceling unemployment as a way to force people to work at jobs they otherwise wouldn’t work at. This forces people back into the modern enslavement system, and takes for granted that enough employers are left in Montana to hire those workers. Rather than assessing whether enough jobs exist for their citizens and then requiring businesses to pay a reasonable wage that covers living costs, or offering benefits to attract workers, the state of Montana will simply block unemployment benefits. Employers that offer miserable wages, no health insurance, and poor working conditions are expected to see an increase in workers applying for those roles, further weakening the negotiating position of workers versus employers. The best analogy, then, for the perceived cruelty of these motivations is, in these modified words of the consultant from “Office Space”: “We fixed the glitch. So they won’t be receiving an unemployment check anymore. So it’ll just work itself out naturally.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is

eric4smith 6y ago

By nature, we humans are very lazy. If I could sit all day and do what I liked instead of writing code, I'd do that instead. Sure, I love to write code. But I want to write the code that gives the joy. Not the code that some client wants me to write. That being said, ending the unemployment benefits is the right move.It's not sustainable. I worry greatly that we're entering a time when the government is going to become our dad/mom and we don't have to work. But then, where will the money come from??? We can only tax the rich so much.

banbanbang 6y ago
I absolutely disagree. Most people are driven and seek creative outlets. This is evident when you observe children. We have to evolve away from a production-based economy to one that is knowledge-based.
eplanit 6y ago
> I worry greatly that we're entering a time when the government is going to become our dad/mom and we don't have to. Unfortunately, that's exactly the goal for too many people anymore.
8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
Wait you are concerned that the government is becoming too much like a parent figure but you also think the correct role of the government is to tell people to do their homework?
vharuck 6y ago
As evidence against the idea that people left to their own devices will not work to the benefit of society, I present all progress in human history. At no point was there something other than a human leading governments or industries. The real question is, how many of these driven people do we actually need, and what are the proper ways to let work with the other people.
- eric4smith 6y ago
  It would only take 20% The other 80% would work for them. The 80/20 rule in principle. Yes, sounds bad, but that the world that we live in.

minikites 6y ago

There's only a "worker shortage" because wages are low. There wouldn't be a "shortage" if these businesses actually paid decent wages. https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1390011074179645444 https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/139001107417964544... >Most of these restaurant and retail owners can clearly pay more if they want but they are worried about the precedent and they know if they ban together and whine to a compliant media enough and fake like people won’t get cheeseburgers politicians will pull UI and social programs https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1390019438817185798 https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/139001943881718579... >Here we detail the long history of industry trade groups in nursing, education, trucking, construction & dozens of industries shaping media narratives of “worker shortages”. covid just supercharged this decades old PR gambit with an added kicker of pressuring govt to suspend UI

COGlory 6y ago
The Wendy's in Bozeman starts at $17. The McDonald's there starts at $15.50. I know of people working at a clothing store (Athleta) making $22. I think you're extremely off the mark with this comment.
- minikites 6y ago
  Are you asserting that the monetary value of unemployment benefits exceeds the full time salary of those jobs? It's easily possible that the the majority of local employers pay much less than that and are threatened by UI. Does every local business pay that well or just the corporate chains (which have additional wage pressures and other nationwide factors)?
  - josephcsible 6y ago
    You can't meaningfully compare just the monetary amounts, since the jobs require you to get up and go to work every day, and the unemployment benefits don't.
    - minikites 6y ago

jl2718 6y ago

“and disproportionately harms ...” Okay, let’s hear the proportions then. We’re talking about unemployment in Montana.

orasis 6y ago

Montana resident here. I won’t comment in the wisdom of the policy itself, but I will say that people avoiding work due to CoVid benefits is a very real thing. It’s widely considered wise to go hunting and play video games rather than go to work.

falcolas 6y ago
Montana resident here. That’s anecdotal bullshit.
- listless 6y ago
  TN here with another anecdote that says it isn’t. Spoke to someone just recently who said they’ll stay on unemployment as long as they are allowed because they haven’t had to work in over a year and get to spend their time playing their favorite video games. Which, if you make as much unemployed as you do employed, it makes no sense to return to work. He’s not a bad person. He’s just optimizing.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    So these are all people who make less than $2000 a month. That's $12 an hour.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      That's above minimum wage, isn't it (I don't know if it's different over there, but I expect it's not >$12)?
      - alienthrowaway 6y ago
        There are two ways to solve this "problem" (if you consider it to be one). Either cut the benefits, or raise the minimum wage (or pay above minimum wage). Personally, I'd rather have people dicking around, hunting and playing video games and having fun, rather than working at a soul-sucking mimimum-wage job and still be on the state's teat (getting food stamps) because the minimim wage is too low.

kwdc 6y ago

Seems cruel to me. Especially if you need a part time job because of family commitments. Plenty of full time jobs are actively hostile to working parents. Perhaps dealing with that issue first would help? Or is this really just about punishing those who can't fight back as hard? Probably. Edit: unemployed people are easy targets in order to appear tough in politics. Its great for later campaigning.

falcolas 6y ago
This is the governer who received support for assaulting a reporter while campaigning.
- kwdc 6y ago
  Assault on reporter https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/us/politics/greg-gianforte-sentenced.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/us/politics/greg-gianfort... Anger management course. Community service of 40 hours. And some other issues on top, including some bending of the truth? Wow. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/17/greg-gianforte-guardian-reporter-ben-jacobs-assault https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/17/greg-gianfor...

jguimont 6y ago

One better long term solution is to raise salaries. Raising the hourly wage will help fill in some employment. Yes there are side effects to that (raising prices is one), but anything else is pushing a problem forward.

bearjaws 6y ago
Here in Florida many restaurant owners are complaining that no one is coming back. What even more hilarious is, they are offering $200 sign on bonuses to work in their restaurant. Meanwhile Wawa (a gas station chain) is offering $500 bonus + 1 day PTO when you get your vaccine AND $75 to get your vaccine. Gee I wonder why someone isn't signing up to a $200 bonus to get paid hopefully $8 an hour after tips!
- jonnycomputer 6y ago
  Like when the employer says, no, you aren't getting a raise, but here is a one time $1000 bonus. Taking advantage of people's delay discounting ... otoh, in the context where you do not feel like you can count on keeping the job, then bonuses become more appealing than incremental wage increases.

skynet-9000 6y ago

If the U.S. were to double the minimum wage from $7 to $15, it would make sense to invest in robotics firms, or perhaps the largest fast food chains like McDonald's. Why? Because lower-price restaurants would have a choice: dramatically raise their food prices (which would almost certainly drive inflation across the board as everyone in all industries would hopefully see raises to deal with increased costs of living) or try to minimize the hit. If the latter, this would set off an immediate price war, even if unintentional, because McDonald's especially would strive to keep their prices from changing as little as possible. Then, the smaller chains that couldn't afford to reduce their workforce and/or invest in efficiency or robotics wouldn't survive. You would see less competitive chains like Popeye's closing up on Interstate exits, and their marketshare would be handed over to the larger chains. The unintended consequences of a massive shift like that would be enormous, and it would absolutely result in a stronger national chains and probably destroy or badly harm local eateries -- especially the ones that were trying to be price competitive. Get ready to see your local small businesses under severe pressure, while profitable operations like McDonald's and Chik-Fil-A will mop up the smaller places, and this is across the board at any low-skill, low-wage places, not just restaurants.

maxerickson 6y ago
Wages are not 100% of current food prices. I don't know what they are, but it isn't 100%, which is what it would take to require doubling prices to cover doubled wages.
- skynet-9000 6y ago
  That is true, but it is why I said "nearly". The largest cost in any fast food restaurant is almost certainly labor.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Labor costs are obviously not nearly 100% of revenue, no one would bother operating a franchise.

urtens 6y ago

Anybody thought of increasing the minimum wage instead?

josephcsible 6y ago
I don't think this would help, since there's already a lot of businesses offering significantly over minimum wage that are still having trouble finding employees.

loudtieblahblah 6y ago

maybe all the rioters will go back to flipping burgers and bagging groceries now.

pessimizer 6y ago

Paying enough unemployment for people to survive damages the reserve army of the unemployed. It's important to remember that capitalists and communists basically agree on most economic points, they just disagree on the most ethical distribution of resources.

konaraddi 6y ago

It looks like Montana believes their unemployment benefits are too generous. I suspect the real issue here is that low-end employers should be paying more. Montana intends to get rid of some people’s best option (unemployment benefits) and is hoping it will force those people to go with their next best alternative; a job that pays less than the previous unemployment benefits. I’m not sure the one-time bonus makes up for it. Regardless: “Different papers have established that the extra $600 in benefits distributed earlier in the pandemic had limited labor supply effects and likely didn’t disincentivize work, including one by the National Bureau of Economic Research and another by Yale University. The current supplemental benefit is worth half of what those papers reviewed.”

jl2718 6y ago
> Job that pays less than unemployment benefits.... Yeah that’s pretty much exactly why they reduced unemployment benefits. You seriously think it’s a good idea to pay people more to do nothing than they would get for their best option for doing something useful for somebody else? You know the money comes from other people, right? Other people that work. And if they refuse to pay, they get arrested, and if they refuse arrest, they get shot. So, given that the potential punishment for work includes death, why would anybody do that? I mean, somebody has to, right?
- konaraddi 6y ago
  > You seriously think it’s a good idea to pay people more to do nothing than they would get for their best option for doing something useful for somebody else? Nah, please consider re-reading my comment in its entirety. The comment that I’m replying to is taking a sentence out of context, creating a straw man out of it, and then attacking it. > You know the money comes from other people, right? Yeah, definitely > And if they refuse to pay, they get arrested, and if they refuse arrest, they get shot. So, given that the potential punishment for work includes death, why would anybody do that? Bit of a slippery slope (tax evasion, in the US, usually doesn’t lead to death at the hands of law enforcement) but yea, I agree with the sentiment here. Avoiding arrest is good (barring any justified civil disobedience)

Avshalom 6y ago

OH WAIT. https://www.mtpr.org/post/industry-experts-talk-about-challenges-opportunities-address-montana-s-labor-shortage https://www.mtpr.org/post/industry-experts-talk-about-challe... I knew I remembered this. There was a damn "labor shortage" in Montana before the pandemic.

udev 6y ago

This is a sub-optimal solution. If you want real results, just make being unemployed illegal. No need to increase salaries... so is perfect!

jl2718 6y ago
Well it’s already illegal to keep more than about half of your own work, so this is the logical next step.

salawat 6y ago

Sounds to me like labor wage expectations have gone up, and businesses aren't reacting accordingly. As I recall, many minimum wage-$13 an hour jobs find better returns on unemployment benefits than actually working. (I don't see this as a problem with the government program either; wage theft is a real thing).

LorenPechtel 6y ago

I wonder how many of the people not working are long covid cases.

lamontcg 6y ago

Back to the salt mines, slaves.