Rejecting supplemental unemployment aid won’t help workers
There may be a labor shortage in Texas, but it has yet to reach Buc-ee’s, the gas station and convenience store chain that launched in 1982 in Lake Jackson.
“Buc-ee’s has been fortunate to maintain strong staffing levels at its stores,” said Jeff Nadalo, the company’s general counsel, in an email.
“We attribute this to Buc-ee’s paying above-market wages, providing 3 weeks of paid vacation, offering health and dental benefits, as well as offering a matching 401k plan.”
He added that employees also enjoy the prospect of promotions and the positive work environment at the chain’s stores — the latter being among the reasons Buc-ee’s is so popular with travelers, too.
And it’s instructive that this iconic Texas-based chain has been able to keep its stores staffed simply by offering decent wages and benefits, isn’t it? State leaders should take note.
Gov. Greg Abbott on May 17 announced that he will reject supplemental federal unemployment aid authorized earlier this year by Congress, effective next month. The funds in question, which are set to expire in September regardless, would have extended an additional $300 a week for Texans receiving unemployment benefits.
“The Texas economy is booming and employers are hiring in communities throughout the state,” Abbott said in a statement. “According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the number of job openings in Texas is almost identical to the number of Texans who are receiving unemployment benefits.”
He was not the first governor to announce such a move, which came after the Texas Association of Business, joined by several dozen chambers of commerce and trade associations, called on him to make it. In fact, rejecting supplemental unemployment insurance is all the rage among red-state governors of late. Last week, Florida became the 23rd state to join the club. Its governor, Ron DeSantis, previously
had announced that he would reinstate a requirement that people seeking unemployment benefits prove they’re actively looking for work — which he had suspended last year “because, quite frankly, there weren’t jobs.”
And doing so is popular, polls suggest. It aligns with the presumption, widely shared by Republicans and Democrats alike, that people who seek to participate in the labor force should be encouraged to do so, in part because work has value that extends beyond the number printed on a paycheck.
“Americans want to work. Americans want to work,” said President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in a May 10 address about the economy. “And as my dad used to say, ‘A job is about a lot more than a paycheck; it’s about your dignity, your place in the community, being able to look your kid in the eye and say, “Everything is going to be okay.” ’ ”
But Biden rejected the suggestion that slashing unemployment benefits is the right move at this point, noting that 22 million people lost their jobs as a direct result of the pandemic, and that we still have eight million fewer jobs, nationwide, than before it began.
“I think the people who claim Americans won’t work even if they find a good and fair opportunity underestimate the American people,” Biden said.
Indeed, the evidence suggests that Texans are returning to work, and seeking to do so now that the state has reopened and as the nationwide vaccine rollout continues apace. The state’s unemployment rate was 6.7 percent in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — down from 6.9 percent in March, and down from 12.9 percent in April 2020, when the state was in lockdown. The labor-force participation rate, which plunged during the pandemic, stands at 62.2 percent — slightly higher than the national rate.
But the labor shortage is real, according to employers. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which regularly surveys hundreds of Texas business executives about conditions in their sectors, has started including supplemental questions about how COVID-19 has affected hiring, among other aspects of their business. In their April survey fully two-thirds of respondents cited “lack of available applicants/no applicants” as an impediment to hiring workers, and 48 percent pointed to “generous unemployment benefits” as a particular culprit.
“It’s difficult to find people who want to work when they’re making $15 per hour to sit home on unemployment,” commented one manufacturing executive.
“Government checks are keeping people from wanting to work,” said another. “They have money without having to work for it.”
There are a number of comments along these lines, as well as several which are thoughtful rather than sneering.
One health care executive surveyed, for example, explained that “there is a significant amount of hold-back approach from traditional health care workers” in part because of the availability of federal unemployment benefits, but also because of lingering consequences of COVID-19 itself: many health care workers, after months on the front lines of the pandemic, are understandably burned out from the experience. Others — the executive noted that a majority of workers in this sector are women — have had their own home environments upended and are still figuring out, for example, child care arrangements.
That kind of nuance is entirely missing from Abbott’s pronouncement on ending the supplemental benefits, which is unfortunate.
The curtailing of additional unemployment benefits — which aren’t particularly lavish in Texas in the first place, shockingly enough — may help nudge some Texans back to the workforce.
Of course; in making this move, Abbott is effectively infringing on the opportunity Texas workers rarely enjoy — the opportunity to use some leverage, as they re-enter the market. The labor shortage employers are reporting could also be addressed by following the Bucee’s example of higher wages and greater benefits.