Oh, the things pols say in the unguarded moments that crises all too often deliver. Just ask Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, whose recent comments about unemployment compensation open a shocking portal into his warped view of business economics.
As a New York Times dispatch reminded, those “on unemployment in most states normally receive, on average, less than half their weekly salaries.”
“Unemployment benefits are typically meant to keep people afloat but stay low enough to incentivize them to find a job,” the report reminds. “Now, when seeking work may be both fruitless and dangerous,” or, we add, an exploitable moment, “the incentives have nearly reversed.”
In the world of coronavirus pandemic “stimulus” packages, the “recovery” plan’s extra $600 weekly in jobless benefits – paid on top of the once “regular” benefit – many unemployed are receiving more than they would have earned in their jobs.
And that has created a perverted incentive: Why, when the economy reopens (after being closed by government fiat it will be “allowed” to reopen by government fiat) should those super-compensated folks return to work?
That is, until the unemployment runs out.
Wolf compounded that perversion recently in a news conference. Asked if the commonwealth would suspend jobless benefits for workers found to be delaying returning to their jobs because they make more not working, the governor said “No.”
But he did not stop there.
“And as a former business owner, if you ever face that kind of situation, there’s one really simple thing that you can do as a business owner and that is raise the compensation of your employee.”
With what, Governor? Perhaps magic dust found in the toes of Dorothy’s slippers from “The Wizard of Oz”?
Ah, words of “wisdom” from Gov. Command & Control. Talk about economics ignorance colliding with “progressive” regressivism.
The Wolf administration has spent the last few days attempting to rationalize his nescience, if not, as others have noted, his rather overt endorsement of welfare fraud. But the efforts only further laid bare his disregard for sound public policy.
“The governor’s point was that we all depend on those workers now more than ever and they deserve a safe work environment and living wage, which is why he has proposed a minimum wage increase each year he has been in office, among many other proposals to improve working conditions for workers,” said Penny Ickes, communications director with the Department of Labor and Industry.
No, Ms. Ickes, the governor’s point was that taxpayers should become the paymaster of Pennsylvania workers whose employers don’t pay what the government says they should be paid.
That, of course, is not how a market economy works. It is, however, how governments destroy a market economy in their seemingly never-ending attempt to create more wards of “The State.”
Indeed, the coronavirus can be a nasty one. But the “progressive” ignorance that has infected Gov. Wolf’s economic policies stand to be far nastier.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
