“Gonna buy me some Mousies and ‘Nip!”

Guys, remember that time that all the Republicans on the TeeVee Machine were telling us that the lazy bastards were not returning to work during a pandemic because they were being paid $300 to stay home on the couch, so they decided to cut off their benefits early to force the moochers to return to burger flipping, Praise Jeebus?

It seems it didn’t work as planned.

26 states ended federal unemployment benefits early. Data suggests it’s not getting people back to work

About half of U.S. states withdrew federal funds for the unemployed months early to encourage out-of-work residents to find a job. But mounting evidence shows that policy gambit hasn’t yet paid off.

Twenty-six states announced their intent to end federal pandemic-era benefits starting in May. They officially pulled out in waves over June and July.

UKG, a payroll and time-management firm, found that shifts among hourly workers in those states grew at about half the rate as states that continued the benefit — the opposite trend of what one might expect.

Weird. Republicans being wrong about workers, and being wrong about the economy. UNPOSSIBLE!!!

Specifically, in states that ended benefits, shifts grew 2.2% from May through July; they grew 4.1% in the others that kept federal aid intact, according to UKG’s analysis.

“Unemployment benefits were not the thing holding people back from going to work,” according to Dave Gilbertson, a vice president at UKG. “There are other elements out there, particularly in their personal lives, making it really difficult to go back to work.”

You mean like, oh, DEATH?

Some economists argue pandemic-related factors, not jobless benefits, are the primary reasons workers may not be returning to the workforce as quickly as anticipated.

For example, parents may still not have adequate childcare; those who can’t work from home may still be cautious for health reasons; workers may have relocated away from jobs, or changed industries, during the pandemic; and baby boomers may have retired early and don’t plan to return.

The delta variant threatens to further complicate the recovery. Many of the states that withdrew federal support also have lower rates of Covid vaccination, Bunker said.

So… fear of dying at their unsafe work.

Jobless respondents ranked unemployment payments last among factors keeping them from searching for work urgently. They ranked behind financial cushion, have an employed spouse, household care responsibilities and Covid fears.

With the $300 supplement, almost half of jobless workers (48%) make as much or more money on unemployment benefits than their lost paychecks, according to a recent paper published by the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Institute.

Those extra funds had a small impact on job-finding but didn’t significantly hold back the job market through mid-May, according to economists Fiona Greig, Daniel Sullivan, Peter Ganong, Pascal Noel and Joseph Vavra, who authored the analysis.

It’s funny (not funny) how Republicans always think that one must offer carrots to businesses (tax cuts) and sticks to workers (cutting benefits during a pandemic).

What clearly was happening was that the return to unsafe working conditions for minimum wage was not much of an incentive. And Republicans —devoted as they are to the Invisible Hand of the Market— couldn’t/wouldn’t see that market forces were suggesting that they need to pay people for their work.