A cold May GOOD MORNING!!! to you all! Yes. It was a cold Hershey walk this morning. It’s supposed to be spring. Stupid spring!
Today’s bit o trivia: The Homestead Act. During the War of Southern Treason (Civil War), Mr. Lincoln signed into law The Homestead Act (1862). That set aside 500 million (“million” with an “M”) acres of land for ‘Merican citizens and wanna be ‘Merican citizens, who did not take up arms against ‘Merica. You staked out your claim and, after 5 years of farming it and putting a house on it, it was yours free and clear. Or, you could pay the US government $1.25 per acre and after 6 months…it was yours. Of the 500 million acres, around 80 million went to people actually wanting and able to build on the land to make a better life. The rest went to big business and speculators. Wins for everyone…except for Native Americans. Remember, they weren’t citizens or wanna be citizens.
Anyway…
Think About it Thursday Ed-vise today. What shall we think about today?
Let’s think about this so called “labor shortage.”
If you read the business news headlines, you see, everywhere, about labor being short and employers paying lots of money to hire people for what seems like low skilled labor. One fast food place paying upwards of $20 an hour for pizza cooking. A trucking outfit in Texas offing something like $14,000 a week for drivers.
Add into that the cry from some that the additional unemployment benefits make it too difficult to get people back to work. Which creates the labor shortage.
I don’t see a labor shortage. I see a pay shortage; not a labor shortage.
A labor shortage would imply that the bodies to work are not available. They are available. Despite the number of deaths due to COVID, the “bodies” to work are available.
If so, how do you get them back to work? One idea: lobby your representative to continue to unemployment money but, instead, offer it as a subsidy to minimum wage. Yup, incentivize going back to work.
Small businesses that cannot afford to make up the gap between unemployment and minimum wage can use the subsidy to get people back to working for them. Can then start paying the employees what they are worth (or at least a good start) instead of what they can afford. We could call it the Government Subsidy to Help Small Business Grant.
A grant to a stupid government backed loan…like a student loan. I’m just saying
That’s it for today. Take care of yourselves. Check in on each other and remember all the good chemistry jokes…Argon!
Peace
Ed-vise 