> People changing careers wouldn't contribute to the total number of unfilled jobs being higher, though
Are there actually any evidence that there are more unfilled jobs though? Unemployment is actually at 3.9%, which is down to pre-pandemic levels. That's better than 2017 and most of 2018, actually.
Heck, now that I'm pulling up real numbers (should've done this earlier), unemployment spiked up to 14.7% in April of 2020, and was on a continuous downward slide after that, including before any state cut its enhanced UI. Nationwide unemployment was at 5.9% when states began cutting UI. This is more consistent with "crisis over, we don't need to keep this" than "oh god we have to cut UI or they won't go back to work. My state had an unemployment rate of 3% when they turned off enhanced UI, no need for a stick there!
For comparison the official unemployment rate was above 5.9% between August 2008 and October of 2014.
I think that the best argument for here "UI lets people be lazy and not work" is not that people stopped working during the pandemic because of it. I think the best argument is that people knew that this system was temporary and that they had to get a new job and start working when they felt it was safe, because it was temporary. One might expect different results if the system was more generous permanently, I don't know.
> And if "general re-evaluation of life choices" leads to quitting your job, aren't the only two possibilities that you either get a new job, or you don't work anymore?
Either possibility is incompatible with the general thesis that UI was why people stopped working, and we had to cancel UI in order to get people back into work. Either they didn't need the job and no amount of UI tweaking will bring them back, or they decided to get a different job and no amount of UI tweaking will fill their old one.
> But what about the rest of the states? And the federal government left their money faucet on until September.
I could be wrong here, but UI is administered through the states. The federal government had the money tap on to the states who then gave it out through their system.
Are there actually any evidence that there are more unfilled jobs though? Unemployment is actually at 3.9%, which is down to pre-pandemic levels. That's better than 2017 and most of 2018, actually.
Heck, now that I'm pulling up real numbers (should've done this earlier), unemployment spiked up to 14.7% in April of 2020, and was on a continuous downward slide after that, including before any state cut its enhanced UI. Nationwide unemployment was at 5.9% when states began cutting UI. This is more consistent with "crisis over, we don't need to keep this" than "oh god we have to cut UI or they won't go back to work. My state had an unemployment rate of 3% when they turned off enhanced UI, no need for a stick there!
For comparison the official unemployment rate was above 5.9% between August 2008 and October of 2014.
I think that the best argument for here "UI lets people be lazy and not work" is not that people stopped working during the pandemic because of it. I think the best argument is that people knew that this system was temporary and that they had to get a new job and start working when they felt it was safe, because it was temporary. One might expect different results if the system was more generous permanently, I don't know.
> And if "general re-evaluation of life choices" leads to quitting your job, aren't the only two possibilities that you either get a new job, or you don't work anymore?
Either possibility is incompatible with the general thesis that UI was why people stopped working, and we had to cancel UI in order to get people back into work. Either they didn't need the job and no amount of UI tweaking will bring them back, or they decided to get a different job and no amount of UI tweaking will fill their old one.
> But what about the rest of the states? And the federal government left their money faucet on until September.
I could be wrong here, but UI is administered through the states. The federal government had the money tap on to the states who then gave it out through their system.