OREGON RESTAURANT: STIMULUS KEEPS PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED

We started making the calls last week, just as our furloughed employees began receiving weekly Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation checks of $600 under the Cares Act. When we asked our employees to come back, almost all said, “No thanks.” If they return to work, they’ll have to take a pay cut.

The starting wage for a line cook in one of our restaurants is $15 an hour. These cooks receive at least $1 an hour in tips, so at a minimum they make $16 an hour, or $640 before taxes for a 40-hour week. The overwhelming majority of our laid-off cooks qualified for Oregon unemployment compensation of 1.25% of their annual gross wages weekly, or $416 in our example. The extra $224 a week provides a strong incentive to return to work.

But as of this week, that same employee receives $1,016 a week, or $376 more than he made as a full time employee. Why on earth would he want to come back to work?

https://oregoncatalyst.com/47140-oregon-restaurant-stimulus-people-unemployed.html

Full disclosure: I was opposed to the extra $600/week unemployment bonus from the moment I heard about it, and even argued about it with some of the leftwingers right here on PF.

How could anyone think it is a good idea to pay people more not to work than to work?

Plus, $600/week extra is not pennies. If I remember correctly this is supposed to stay in place for four months ---- which is a nearly $10,000 windfall for not working. That's a nice chunk of "free money" even if you're not a minimum wage worker.

(As a sidenote, is it any wonder some people with virtually no risk of catching or spreading COVID are wanting to delay reopening of businesses?)

Based on the chart in the article, workers in 3/4 of our states are now getting paid more not to work than they were getting paid to work.

Thoughts?

(Is there a way for a business to prove they are trying to hire these people back, thus cutting them off from the $600/week bonus? And of course then you have grumpy recalcitrant workers on your hands....)

 

Kind of a risk. The job may get filled before the money ends.

 

Getting paid more not to work qualifies them for government jobs!!

 

I don’t know about in Oregon but in Tennessee employers have access to a state portal that allowed them to say an offer to return to work has been given and refused. The employee is sent an appeal letter that their benefit will be suspended unless they can show that the offer isn’t valid.

I would assume other states have similar systems but the offer of employment is the same everywhere.

We should have done like most nations, provided 80% up to a maximum, suspend mortgage / utilities / rent.
But it is an election year and vote buying has become increasingly successful.

Most people cannot comprehend how much money a billion is, so whats another 2-3 trillion added on top of the debt.

 

I don't know of any unemployment system that will pay of you refuse any job coming back.

But its only the 1% who should get freebies, not working people!

 

Hurr, duhurr!

 

I'm shocked I tell you, absolutely shocked that people working in low wage, dead end jobs would prefer to stay at home and make more money, while helping prevent the spread of a deadly virus. That is what I want to do, risk my health for a job that barely pays the bills. There is a reason that the virus has not infected that many people in Oregon. It is purposeful that people are paid to stay home. In Portland, even the city has been offering businesses financial incentives not to open.

 

Maybe it works differently in the US but isn't the status of employees being furloughed determined by the employer? If they're able to return to some kind of normal business, can't they simply declare that the employees are no-longer furloughed?

If the employees were just sacked rather than being furloughed, I'd say they have a level of justification for choosing not to return to the same job, thought they have a general responsibility to seek some form of employment (and presumably won't receive unemployment payments indefinitely).

If there is really a flat unemployment payment of $600 a week, that sounds like an issue but I'd suggest the situation is more complex than that alone.

 

I don't know specifically about Chef's Table but it is common in Oregon for the employees, in places like Restaurants, to be hired as less than full time temporary employment. Many are put into the position of being an independent contractor, even though they really aren't. I think it is kind of a corrupt way to do things, but the practice seems to be widespread.

The arrangement allows employers to terminate workers with less hassle. Forces the employee to pay for his/her own expenses. The downside is all on the part of the employee. Yet, as in the current environment, many of those restaurants can't call back their employees because they were never official full employees to begin with.

At best there are agencies which the workers go through, kind of like the union halls of old, where employers and workers are connected. The restaurant could ask those agencies for workers.

In this case, especially considering the source, I think that this is a fine example of karma. Companies skirting the law to squeeze out a little extra profit, at the expense of their workers, now getting caught in a pickle. There seems to be a growing market for restaurant food pick up and delivery. Yet those very workers that are needed to supply the demand are low income workers who now have the opportunity to sit home and make more money than they could working. For a couple of months anyhow. And a $1200 bonus on top of it.

I think that Amazon is having the same problem. Thing is, I think that most people understand, and they really publicize it in Oregon, is that if we take precautions, as burdensome as they may be, that we can beat this virus without too many getting infected. So far, Oregon has been doing much better than most states. But then Kate Brown was the first governor to begin the process of closing down the state, ordering restaurants to close and public gatherings to be suspended.

While nationally there is a shortage of PPE or personal protection equipment, I don't think that is the case in Oregon. Oregon has perhaps the most stringent worker safety laws of any state. This means that there are large numbers of jobs, where PPE is required. Every business that handles things that are dusty or stinky are required to supply N95 type masks to their workers. Safety goggles too. When I go out, I see lots of people wearing n95 style masks, although I have been seeing a lot of designer masks lately also.

 

Blame your states high, minimum wage.

 

It is unemployment PLUS an EXTRA $600 a week. For four months, which equals nearly $10,000 ON TOP OF unemployment. Which is a significant incentive not to go back to work....

 

As I said, I see how that can be problematic and it strikes me as a weird policy in itself but it's just part of a wider, pre-COVID-19 issue. The quote in the OP refers to the employees as furloughed but that isn't actually true. The employees had just been fired. That's why they qualified for unemployment.

Maybe the expectation was that unemployment would be the result of businesses going under due to COVID-19 and thus leaving people without any work permanently and, because of the virus, unable to seek new work as they normally would. On that basis, additional support for the unemployed could make sense (though a flat weekly payment is over simplistic).

Actually furloughed employees would still be employed and, theoretically, still be paid by the employers. In the UK, there is a scheme to support that, with the government giving employers 80% of a furloughed employees wage (up to a limit) to help cover the wage costs. I don't know if anything similar exists in the US but I do know the nature of employment is somewhat different there, with employees fired much more easily and cheaply. That's part of the bigger picture that I see this specific issue being just one part of.

 

I love watching Portland destroy itself from within.

 

I've read several articles including by the restaurant and other business owners saying they don't expect workers to come back until July when the $600 runs out. But just try to get it rescinded in Congress and watch the Dems and Left attack and declare what a heartless uncaring evil person you are. The goal is to get people back to work not stuck on government subsistence. We saw the difference between the recovery after the 2001 recession and the 2008/9 recession and that was one of the factors.

 

There is no "furlough" you are laid off and have no job. There is no obligation for an employer to call you back or for you to go back. Now most employers will want their experienced workers back but if that person is getting more money sitting at home................ On unemployment you merely go online or send in a form that pretty much sets the goal post at "well I thought about getting a job". It was one of the problems during the recovery after the 2008/9 recession where the Dems blew up unemployement benefits and lowered work requirements and the Labor Force Participation Rate went over the cliff as people found out they were just fine not working.

And now AOC is urging people NOT to go back to work cause work is so demeaning.

 

In my area, local business owners are faced with the same thing. Many of those who have been contacted are trashing the business owners because they took the payroll loans. Many have suggested that the owners, my friends, are evil because they are going to take money away from them because they will no longer be eligible for their extra benefits from unemployment. So now what? These folks "suffer" because they don't get paid as much but their employer might still be around when the lockdowns get lifted?

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/coronavirus-black-americans-race/index.html

3% black?

 

This is one of the reasons that I think conservatives are goofy. Portland is not destroying itself from within. It is a rather nice place to live. I highly suspect that your "opinion" about Portland was got by listening to right wing media, which always lies to you.

 

Idaho has less Blacks yet three times the infection rate.

 

This can be fixed by paying the employee 80% of his original wage in unemployment benefits.

 

Is the media lying to me about the large numbers of homeless in Portland?

 

The free money is not an annuity and will soon run out, and when your free money is exhausted work could still be real hard to find, plus you are then known as an unreliable who wouldn't work. The people who knew you, who you depended upon for a paycheck, won't want you and won't help you. They'll want to take a chance on somebody new who might turn out to be a reliable hand. You'll have to figure it out from nothing with nothing.

Darwin will work these situations. Karma, too.

 

You also have almost twice as much rain.

 

Probably not.
https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/map/#fn[]=1400&fn[]=2800&fn[]=6200&fn[]=10000&fn[]=13200

I'm from Georgia and in the 70's I went to Washington State, when in the military, and was surprised at the number of homeless kids I saw.

 

Do you know why the liberal candidates are always elected to the Portland City Council? A good portion of the conservatives are homeless, and even though the homeless are encouraged to vote, very few of them do.

I was reading an article awhile back, something about the uniqueness of liberal thought. How it popped up in only one area, and may have been the result of an evolutionary jump. It comes from evidence of brain differences, possibly genetic, that differentiate liberals from conservatives. Studies that show that the brightest 10 year old boys tend (80% or so) to grow up to be strong liberals. Along with that greater intelligence comes a greater concern for others, unlike oneself.

The homeless tend to migrate where conditions are good. The rest of the country pushes them westwards where the climate is quite agreeable and there is a plentitude of well to do liberals to fund services for them, limited as they may be.

You know, America never had much of a homeless problem until during the Reagan era, that it was decided that the mentally ill would be better off fending for themselves. Pulling themselves up by the boot straps and all that. Obviously that is never going to happen.

The homeless problem is America's problem. It has just been drifting westward. Every city has homeless people. Yet for the Trumpian mentality to use it as an excuse to trash half the people of the country just shows how shallow and petty the Trumpian brain brain is