Opinion

Editorial: Charade bonuses? Just pay N.C. workers a livable wage

Monday, May 24, 2021 -- It is past time that North Carolina policymakers assure citizens that every person who has a job is paid a living wage. It is no bonus to offer someone $1,500 to take a job that keeps them in poverty.
Posted 2021-05-24T01:25:20+00:00 - Updated 2021-05-24T13:33:19+00:00

CBC Editorial: Monday, May 24, 2021; Editorial #8672
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.


It is a fact. Unemployed North Carolinians who were forced out of work a year ago as the COVID-19 pandemic peaked are flocking back to their jobs.

The unemployment rate a year ago – a recession-busting 13.5% -- has been reduced to 5%, according to data released last week from the state Department of Commerce.

It is an astonishing turnaround. Citizens have adhered to commonsense health precautions and regulations; federal and state economic policies have worked to keep most workers from the depths of poverty as well as help sustain many businesses.

There are some looking to perpetuate a myth that there are people who aren’t working or looking for jobs but simply continuing to accept government benefits (“paying people not to work” is how these mythmakers like to phrase it).

Former Gov. Pat McCrory, now a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate, bragged in a recent interview about slashing the state’s unemployment benefits back in 2013 to among the lowest in the nation. He perpetuated the myth that lowering benefits drives people to work saying some employers tell him “they cannot fill jobs now because when you pay people more not to work, guess what they’ll do? Most of them won’t work.”

The facts just don’t bear it out. North Carolinians want to be on the job.

Private sector employment for April has increased from 3.337 million a year ago to 3.763 million. In the hospitality and leisure sector, some have contended restaurant wait staff are shirking jobs in favor of government payouts. Not so say the figures. Employment surged 54% from 287,000 last April to 442,000 this year.

                 NORTH CAROLINA EMPLOYMENT DATA -- APRIL

APRIL2021202020192018
LABOR FORCE5.012 million4.690 million5,040 million4.983 million
EMPLOYED4.762 million4.055 million4.838 million4.781 million
UNEMPLOYED251,000634,000202,000201,000
RATE5.0%13.5%4.0%4.0%
NON-FARM4.460 million4.041 million4.555 million4.485 million
PRIVATE3.763 million3.337 million3.823 million3.752 million
HOSPITALITY/LEISURE442,000287,000522,000502,000

Legislators who think that paying people $1,500 (redirecting federal funds intended for unemployment aid) to go back to work – while also slashing current unemployment benefits -- are missing the point.

What some workers are realizing, as they’ve struggled to cope during the pandemic, is the costs of childcare and related expenses to maintain a low-wage job are actually money losers. They have come to recognize it costs some of them MORE MONEY to work at minimum-wage jobs (or hospitality jobs that pay even less) that don’t even include health care and other basic benefits.

The proposed bonus, which would need federal approval, wouldn’t even cover two months of decent childcare.

The increase in federal unemployment benefits have shed a bright light – and North Carolina workers spot it – that some employers simply aren’t paying them a living wage. Some families have found they are better off with a single breadwinner instead of two. It is not about living off of unemployment payment benefits. It is the realization that it does not make economic sense to take a job that costs a family more money than it brings in.

State policymakers – from Gov. Roy Cooper to leaders of the General Assembly and rank-and-file legislators – shouldn’t shy away from looking to be creative in rebuilding the state’s work force.

But they also need to disabuse themselves of the notion that the problem is the workers. North Carolinians are not lazy, they are not shirkers and they are not the problem.

It is past time that policymakers assure citizens that every person who has a job is paid a living wage. It is no bonus to offer someone $1,500 to take a job that keeps them in poverty.

The legislature needs to adopt a living wage for North Carolina’s workforce -- a wage for workers that would make a job economically viable.

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