LETTER: 'Help wanted'? Maybe it's because of the incentives to not work!

Your Aug. 28 front-page headline article “Help wanted — everywhere” should not be a surprise to anyone. The cited reasons for the difficulty in finding help are all real, but the underlying cause was not addressed.

The supply of labor is shrinking because over the past 20 years the government has instituted and enhanced programs to discourage potential workers from taking a job, and drug addiction disqualifies many more. On the demand side, the employers cited bonuses, benefits, higher wages and flexible schedules as tools they are using to attract employees. However, they are competing with incentives for not working that are tough to beat.

The federal government has vastly expanded the SNAP (food stamp) program to make more people eligible and make it easier to enroll. With the average payment per person of $189 per month, the rolls have grown to over 47 million recipients since 2008.

Obamacare opened the door to health care for many people who need it. However, many able-bodied unemployed who would have taken a job to get health benefits no longer need to take a job to get them.

Why work?

Affordable (subsidized) housing programs offer low-rent housing to income-qualified applicants. Again, the program is important but it reduces the need to take a job, and in fact the applicant is rejected if he or she makes too much money.

Unemployment benefits are designed to help a displaced worker bridge the gap between jobs. But when combined with the other benefit programs, the displaced worker has little incentive to return to work until the benefits run out. We shouldn’t be surprised that the oilfield worker holds out for the $22 per hour he was getting. If the oil patch does not gear up by the time his benefits run out, he may lower his sights but for now go fishing.

As further incentive to not take a job, there is the Earned Income Tax Credit. This federal program pays people to not earn income. Less than half the working population actually pays income tax, and many of those who file actually are paid by the government to not work. A family of four with less than $50,000 in income can get a payment of over $5,400 just for filing, costing the government over $70 billion annually.

There are an estimated 7 million able-bodied men between the ages of 25-54 in the U.S. who simply choose not to work. These are not “unemployed” seeking jobs. These unworking simply don’t want to work. Couple that with the ex-prisoners, felons and the drug dependent males, and fully 16 percent of the prime working-age male labor force is not available.

The help-wanted problem is supply-side based. Government largess and chemical dependencies are suppressing the available work force. No wonder the labor participation rate today is near a 30-year low and help-wanted signs are everywhere. —Rick Kinonen, Whitefish