Early on during the pandemic, the requirement that Floridians prove that they were looking for a job in order to qualify for unemployment was dropped. That made sense given the situation. After all, with businesses being shut down and customers being more reluctant to venture out, new jobs were much tougher to come by back then.
However, that has since changed (and changed much earlier in Florida than in other states). In fact, right now Florida has an unemployment rate lower than the national average. With that in mind, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said that Floridians drawing unemployment will need to start providing proof that they’re looking for a job again. That will take effect on May 29, when the previous executive order waiving the work-search requirements will end.
DeSantis said,
Normally, when you’re getting unemployment, the whole idea is that’s temporary, and you need to be looking for work to be able to get off unemployment. It was a disaster, so we suspended those job search requirements. I think it’s pretty clear now, we have an abundance of job openings. We absolutely can put more people to work. The demand is there. Business what to hire more people, and I think we can go in that direction very soon.
At the moment in Florida and other spots around the country, many businesses are desperately understaffed and unable to find employees. As is often the case when you see a huge mess in America, that’s the fault of the government. More particularly, the Democrats. Because the Democrats insisted on adding a $600 supplement to unemployment insurance (it changed to $300 in December), large numbers of unemployed workers have been getting paid more NOT TO WORK than to work. Why go back to work when the government will pay you more to sit on your couch and play video games?
The problem isn’t even necessarily laziness, but rather people reacting rationally to the perverse incentives created by government.
There are 7.4 million open jobs in America.
But employment only increased by 266k in April, far below the 1 million estimate.
Because government is paying folks not to work!
It's only going to get worse w/ Dems' radical policies coming out of DC.
WELCOME TO THE BIDEN ECONOMY!
— Rep. Jody Hice (@CongressmanHice) May 7, 2021
The sad truth is that our own incompetent government’s reaction to the coronavirus did far more economic damage than the virus and we’re still not out of the woods yet.
John Hawkins is the author of 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know. He also owns Linkiest.com.
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