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“People Don’t Want to Work Anymore!”: A Explanation of One of the Oldest Canards
“People don’t want to work anymore!”
How many times have you heard someone exclaim that?
At least once probably, most likely in the past two years, from a fiscally secure conservative over 50.
We started hearing it a lot during the pandemic after Congress passed the CARES Act that included $600 per week in unemployment benefits in addition to individual state unemployment benefits.
When that expired, Congress passed another relief bill that included an unemployment insurance benefit of $300 until mid-March of 2021 when President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law.
Naturally, right-wing pundits started screaming about how the government is “paying lazy people to stay home,” and “evil incentives that are disincentivizing people to work”.
The slogan “People just don’t want to work” became trendy as service-oriented businesses like restaurants, retail, and manufacturing all over the world started to reopen.
