As unemployment benefits for millions of U.S. workers expired on Labor Day, with many states suffering the worst surge of the pandemic, economist Joseph Stiglitz says it’s “disturbing” federal aid was allowed to lapse. “This is going to feed into the problems posed by the Delta variant.” Stiglitz also talks about whether Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should stay in the job, saying he has done a “reasonable job” during the pandemic but has a tendency “to side with Wall Street and engage in deregulation.”
Transcript
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AMY GOODMAN: Unemployment benefits for millions of U.S. workers expired on Labor Day, after President Biden declined to press the Democratic-led Congress to extend assistance, even as many states suffer their worst surge of the pandemic. An estimated 9.3 million jobless workers lost benefits, along with 26 million members of their households who relied on the income. The cutoff of aid came after the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added just 235,000 jobs in August, a significant slowdown due largely to the spread of the Delta coronavirus variant. The unemployment rate for African Americans rose six-tenths of a percentage point in August to 8.8%.
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This is complete nonsense! Everywhere you go there are “help wanted” signs. The lower than expected “New Jobs” report is not because there aren’t jobs, it’s because people won’t get off their couch to fill them (because of the “enhanced” unemployment benefits)! It was a program that outlasted its usefulness and had to end.
So you think you have a better understanding of economics than Stiglitz? When did you win your Nobel? Oh, you don’t have one. You’re just a rightwing fantasist ranting.
Name calling is unnecessary and unbecoming of you Stephan … I am hardly a right wing fantasist, but I am a realist! I have a small business and finding help is impossibly difficult. There are help wanted signs everywhere where I live in NY, from entry level to highly skilled that remain unfilled. Many of our school districts had to delay opening for lack of bus drivers! And what is happening here is a microcosm of the entire country, except maybe in your cloistered retirement island community? Anything that disincentivizes people to seek work (like free money) is counter productive right now. The exodus of retiring baby boomers is exacerbating the situation. Lack of employees up and down the supply chain is reaping havoc on the economy creating bottlenecks everywhere! Nobel Laureates or not, the two economists you site should step out of their ivory tower offices and onto Main Street and look around with their own eyes!
Multiple studies, see SR archive, have been done showing that reducing social support, DOES NOT stimulate people to seek work. Try paying your employees more. I needed some work done and everyone told me that it was impossible to find handyman workers. I raised the hourly wage I would pay by five dollars, and lo, I had three applicants. YOur assessment of your problem is simply not correct.