Bidnomics is proving to be an utter disaster for American workers and consumers, and don’t bet on it ending anytime soon.
With the pandemic all but more – more than half of American adults have been fully vaccinated, and transmissions have fallen through the floor – the economy wants to come back to life. Job opportunities rose to 9.3 million in April, the highest number since the Labor Department began collecting figures in 2000, and a million more than in March, announced last week.
But businesses are having trouble filling those places: 3.5 million Americans are still on unemployment benefits, the Fed also revealed. This is a huge drop from the 19.2 million at the height of COVID, but still double the pre-COVID level, even though almost all job-killing restrictions are not in place.
An obvious problem lies in President Joe Biden’s COVID “relief” package, which extended the $300-a-week federal unemployment supplement through Sept. Employers nationwide cite this as why they can’t bring back workers without big pay increases, and a University of Chicago study found that 42 percent of those seeking benefits are earning more than they did while working. Huh. Why go back to work when you can take a few more months of paid leave?
