GOP’s fear about unemployment insurance underestimates workers

Sunday, June 6, 2021 | 2 a.m.

To anyone who claims Americans aren’t going back to work because they’d rather sit at home and collect unemployment benefits, we have four words for you: Resorts World Las Vegas.

The soon-to-be-opened resort announced this past week it had received 132,000 applications for jobs there, a refute to conservatives who blame current labor shortages on government benefits that they contend are overly generous.

Resorts World will open June 24 with about 6,000 employees, meaning every position at the new property drew an average of 22 applications.

Granted, not all of the job seekers were unemployed when they filed their application. But the upshot is that Resorts World obviously had no problem attracting interest in its positions regardless.

It goes to show that employers offering attractive jobs with competitive pay and benefits will get a good response from American workers.

Unfortunately, though, leaders in the Republican Party are pushing an alternate reality in which the extra unemployment benefits in President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief package are crippling employers in their efforts to fill jobs. In this GOP myth, getting enhanced benefits of $300 a week is enough to spoil Americans and make them content with doing nothing.

But study after study has debunked that lie, including by Yale economists who found no evidence of it during research conducted when the extra benefits were $600 a week — twice the current rate.

This isn’t to suggest that some employers aren’t struggling to find applicants. They certainly are, and we sympathize them. But this is a problem with multiple roots, such as low wages, lack of child care and fear of infection. Let’s remember that just over 41% of the U.S. population of 328 million people have been fully vaccinated.

To their discredit, though, Republican leaders in states across the country are addressing the worker shortages by inflicting pain on the unemployed in the form of ending the $300 enhanced benefits well before they’re scheduled to expire in September. Twenty-five GOP states and counting announced they’re shutting off the federal money to out-of-work residents.

Those individuals can continue to collect regular state benefits, but the loss of the extra funds will no doubt hurt many families who have struggled to put food on the table and maintain households during the pandemic. Plus, it’s well worth remembering that while the enhanced benefits led to situations where some workers were earning more on unemployment than in their jobs, this had beneficial effects for families and the economy. Americans’ savings shot up, consumer spending was stable and debt defaults never spiked despite rampant unemployment. What could have been a multigenerational financial catastrophe for millions was avoided.

Ending the benefits early smacks of the cruel politics of the extremist right, not a defensible solution to the labor shortage.

“Our view is that it’s going to take time for workers to regain confidence in the safety of the workplace, re-establish child care, school and commuting arrangements, and finish getting vaccinated,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

Nevada leaders take the same position, and extra benefits remain firmly in place here.

That’s good. As shown by the situation at Resorts World, thousands upon thousands of Nevadans are hungry to get back to work. They just need more time and more opportunities, which will open up as the economy swings back into full gear.