Rising Unemployment Benefits In The United States Lead To A Shortage Of Workers In Fast Foods restaurans

McDonald's blamed the US government for a labor shortage due to higher unemployment benefits: “When people can earn more by staying at home than at work, they will stay at home”. Business Insider reports. The entrepreneurs said that the result of such a policy will not only increase wages, but also the prices of the menu. Some divisions of the company are already complaining about the lack of employees.

The situation is no better in other fast food chains that cannot recruit new staff. Mainly representatives of the lower strata of the population get jobs in such networks, and now they refuse to work for the previous rate of $ 8-12 per hour (depending on the state).

The fact is that the Joe Biden administration began paying an additional $ 300 weekly in federal unemployment benefits. Only this allowance supplement of $ 1.2-1.3 thousand per month can be higher than the previous salary in fast food.

“Why work when you can get more by staying at home?”, - workers rightly say.

Some fast food chains have already promised to set a minimum wage of $ 15 per hour to somehow attract labor, but most of the hired staff consider it fair to pay $ 20 per hour.

"What's happening? When people can earn more by staying at home than at work, they will stay at home, ”says a letter sent by the company's management to the media. - It's so simple. We don't blame them, we blame the system. We're happy about that, after all, American workers are our customers. The more money they spend, the better our sales are. But something went wrong here. When higher salaries, signing bonuses and paid interviews no longer work, we have problems”.

The US Chamber of Commerce also intervened, urging Congress to end additional weekly federal unemployment benefits: "A disappointing employment report makes it clear that paying people not to work weakens the job market..."

At the same time, some experts argue that fears of rising unemployment are exaggerated. And Biden himself said that they did not have a noticeable effect on slowing down the return of people to work.

The Proeconomics channel commented on this collision as follows:

“This is why a powerful social in the country is needed - so that the employer is interested in competing with him, the social. For example, if in Russia the minimum unemployment benefit was at least 25 thousand rubles. (this is how much the unemployed person is paid for a week in the United States at least), this alone would immediately bring out of stagnant and shameful poverty almost all the bottom 10-20% of Russians. And the enterprises finally made us think about the modernization of production and the increase in labor productivity - this is also an inevitable manifestation of a powerful social (that is, expensive labor)..."