We have a working problem

We went to Six Flags Great Adventure for the first time this season and my 12-year-old son made a startling economic discovery: Basically, you can get two meals, drinks, and a snack at the park for less than a buck a day.

Consider: The park is open for 175 more days this year, and you can get a season pass (with free parking) and add on the deluxe dining plan, and the whole thing costs about $160 per person. So yes: Theoretically, you can go to the park every day and take your meals there, and you’re #winning. My son, the economist.

I also had a bit of an economic eye-opener on our trip: The McDonald’s when you pull off I-195, right before the Six Flags entrance, was not celebrating their billionth sold or their Oreo McFlurry or whatever on the display sign underneath the Golden Arches. Nope. Instead, the franchise was offering something even more mouth-watering: “MCHIRE. COM UP TO $15 HR AIR CONDITIONED.

Yep. The big advertising push is to get people to work at Mickey D’s for $15 an hour, which comes to $600 a week, which is … significantly less that someone can get from unemployment (where the max in New Jersey is $731 a week), especially when you add in the extra $300 the feds are pitching in.

Now to be clear about a lot here: I don’t want to work at McDonald’s (air conditioned or not), and I certainly do not begrudge anyone for taking what the government is offering when it comes to extra monies and extended unemployment insurance. Listen: When this whole COVID thing started, I think we should’ve done tons more to get money in the pockets of Americans who immediately fell on hard times due to not being able — or allowed — to work. Granting extended unemployment and extra money on top of it was right, not only from a “we’re all in this together” perspective, but also from an economic perspective. Had to keep the capitalism machine a-churnin’.

But uh … well, but now McDonald’s can’t hire people for $15 an hour, and I hear from friends in the restaurant industry that they can’t find waitstaff or kitchen staff, and my WaWa is offering a $150 bonus and free Shortis every shift (really) and I’m told schools are having a miserable time hiring cafeteria staff and specialists and the like and I keep seeing articles about how other industries are struggling to fill jobs and …

And while I’m no economist like my chicken-finger eating son, it’s pretty clear we need to rejigger this whole unemployment thing. We keep on going down this path, it’s going to end poorly for everyone. The unemployment jackpot — which, again, I would totally be taking advantage of if those are the cards I’d been dealt — will eventually go back to where it used to be, and in the meantime, small business — and, as we can see in McDonald’s case — big business — are going to struggle to hire people. And when they do find people to work these formerly low(er) wage jobs? Costs for the consumer will go up. Basically, it certainly seems as if we’re headed to a point of high unemployment, high costs of goods and services, and high poverty.

Again, to be clear: Not an economist. But when people can stay home and make more money than they could working, we clearly have a problem.

My solution? It’s kind of obvious: Instead of padding the unemployment checks, give the money in bonuses to newlyhired

And while I’m no economist like my chickenfinger eating son, it’s pretty clear we need to rejigger this whole unemployment thing.

people. Not all at once, not up front, not just $150, but for continued service. This way, we still get money into the pockets of people who need it the most while at the same time getting the economy up and at ‘em again. No-brainer, it seems to me.

Meantime, and thanks to my son, not going to Great Adventure every chance I get is costing me money. I think he may have a firmer grasp on economic matters than I do.