I know some self-employed people. Apparently it wasn’t/isn’t as simple a process as it sounds. A few have gotten unemployment, most I know have not.
UI in Arizona is very low (240 week max) and the federal add-ons went away for a while, so I doubt that UI is the reason waitstaff aren’t flocking back to their jobs.
I know several ex-waitstaff who did say that when the 600 per week payments were coming through, they didn’t want to go back to work because of the money. When they extra payments went away, they couldn’t live on just the UI and found other jobs.
One is making 14 per hour at a McDonalds down the way and loves having a regular schedule. She says she makes about the same and doesn’t have to kiss ass for tips. Another is now a government worker. He is making less, but has great insurance and likes having a regular schedule and paid holidays. Neither of them plan to to back to being waitstaff unless they have to.
My sister is self-employed, as a massage therapist. She’d been collecting UI, as it wasn’t possible for her to see clients – my understanding is that she would not have normally been able to, but that the rules were changed due to COVID. (She’s in Wisconsin, FWIW.)
“If you want to make more money, you should stop flipping burgers and go out and better yourself!”
(later)
“Oh wait, we didn’t actually mean you should do that. Please come back to this shitty low paid job”
Perfect!
If they have a harder time getting those employees ( or getting them back ) I’m guessing they’ll not be too keen on the supply & demand theory dictating better compensation or conditions. Oh, they may “know” it in the most abstract academic sense, but deep down it’ll be an angst-ty indignant “No way in hell should a $%#@& burger flipper get fifteen dollars an hour!”
In some minds, “supply and demand” only exists as an excuse to jack up prices on needed pharmaceuticals, or on staples during a crisis.
It does not apply to labor costs.
That too, and to them, supply & demand seems to apply only to labor costs in a more loose labor market. In tighter labor markets, they lobby to change the rules.
One of my friinds worked at a snack bar at a large medical complex and found herself out of a job when pandemic hit and they closed the food places and gift shops. Literally a year later to the day she was laid off whatever company owned the snack bar asked her if she wanted to come back to work in the near future, and she turned them down because both there still wasn’t a firm date for coming back and also by this point with her SO already working from home it was cheaper for her to stay home than commute, eat out, get babysitting, etc. than work for $10 an hour.
I said nothing about not wanting small businesses. I ran one myself, I technically run one now (although it is largely non-operative), and I’m happy for small businesses to succeed.
You’re right. I misremembered your comment and misspoke. I should have read it more closely before I responded. I’m sorry for that. Yes, business structure involves a lot more than tax avoidance. People structure businesses to be able to raise capital, provide liquidity, and minimize liability among other reasons. But, in my experience, the driving factor in business structure decisions is usually minimizing taxes. I’m dropping this tangent because it’s not particularly relevant to the thread.
I get that impression but I just don’t understand why not.
Yes, this. I’ve been intermittently working maybe once a week, and it’s been a year.
All this plus think of how many of those laid off employees have a family to look out for(kids= school and daycare they can’t telecommute for) and if there’s no safe way to travel to work, then it doesn’t just become about unemployment benefits, it’s a health hazard. If you live in a place where people are under curfew and it’s not deemed safe due to unrest(for example, Mpls right now)things may be open but you can see how it may be impossible to get anyone to work regularly while that’s happening.
Wow! An NBC reporter in Albuquerque tweeted this about a Sonic who posted signs about no one wanting to work anymore.
If only there was some clue as to why nobody wants to work at Sonic…
That part has been underappreciated, as well. Absent some sort of certainty that you go back to a regular full-time income, what’s your motivation to just show up on demand if/when/as needed on an unpredictable basis?
And intermittent work, that results in on/off unemployment situations, means then that unemployment compensation is itself delayed every time it has to be stopped and restarted, and you end up with more gaps where you’re just not getting paid.
Or, employers could pay more. I know, it’s a really novel concept. Instead of bitching and moaning how folks are not begging for crappy minimum wage jobs with no benefits, maybe change the incentive structure.
Change the incentive structure? It seems that what we’re going to do is gut unemployment to the approval of too many . . . I guess that is a kind of incentive structure change.
Last Friday’s indicator podcast mentioned that for many workers there are a lot of problems with inconsistent scheduling, child care, and transportation. All of those were problems pre-COVID, but at least there was more of an option to ask your neighbors to watch your kid for a couple of hours when your boss calls you in for a last minute shift two bus rides away. Now, there’s no bus and your neighbors are quarantining so that’s just not going to happen.
Grandparents as well. My wife and I both have professional jobs and resources. The amount of times we would have normally utilized a grandparent over the past year is crazy. We were able to plan for daycare issues and move schedules around, we haven’t had the same “weekend” in a year. It’s the little 1-2 hour things that come up that have been complicated and stressful. Grandparents used to handle a lot for us.
It’s also Eighth and Bridge. That’s a crappy part of town when it comes to poverty and, in my experience the one time I ate there, a terrible Sonic. There’s some great food in the area too and probably better owners than a
Sonic franchisee.
Isn’t that the area where Combo got shot by that kid on a bike and hookers deliver burgers to the dealers?
Having actually never watched Breaking Bad I can’t say, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the area used for filming.