U.S. Senator Mike Braun: Government is discouraging people from getting back to work
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Fort Wayne's NBC) - Federal aid flowing from Washington in the form of stimulus payments and bigger unemployment checks is no substitute for a productive economy that supports good-paying jobs.
That was part of the message Republican Senator Mike Braun carried with him during a visit Thursday to Fort Wayne.
Braun dropped into Allen County Republican Party Headquarters at Main and Harrison Streets mid-morning and grabbed a microphone to share thoughts with supporters about where he believes the nation is struggling to get on track as the pandemic drags on.
Getting a handle on a troublesome labor shortage is maybe tops in his mind.
He knows beefed-up government assistance is popular with a lot of Americans during the pandemic, but he fears the robust federal government spending is hurting employers and will saddle the younger generation with enormous debt down the road.
In the short term, we do know that many Hoosier companies can't find enough people to keep their payrolls full and their operations running smoothly.
Rachel Blakeman, the director of Purdue Fort Wayne's Community Research Institute, says analysts hoped that as vaccines rolled out and the economy rebounded from the COVID health threat, the labor shortage would ease.
That hasn't happened, at least not yet.
In some cases, older folks may have taken the coronavirus threat as a signal to phase out their work careers ahead of schedule.
She thinks that could have a longer-lasting effect on the job market than the extra aid coming from Washington.
"How large is the issue of people being paid substantial amounts of unemployment and choosing not to engage with the labor force at this time? That one is going to resolve itself, because those extra dollars are not going to last forever... The people who retired early, that's going to be a tougher one to bring back," Blakeman said.
Braun thinks the labor shortage is more of a man-made problem.
"Businesses cannot get people back to work. The federal government, when we put in place this enhanced unemployment benefit, it's actually paying people to stay on the sidelines," Braun said.
Braun is also a big critic of proposals to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, calling that "radical policy" that would devastate restaurants and other businesses.
Blakeman says it's likely a good number of people have left the workforce only temporarily, because they might be nervous about the COVID threat at their jobs, or maybe they're part of two-income households where one adult now stays home for child care reasons, especially where kids are doing remote learning.
