Search
Economics
Politics

Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Calculates an Unemployed Worker Makes $35 an Hour

•

•

17 comments on Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Calculates an Unemployed Worker Makes $35 an Hour

•

,

Why Work?

Illinois’ unemployment rate rose to 7.2% July 15, the 8th worst in the nation. At the same time employers are having trouble filling job vacancies. 

The average Illinoisan earns $55,770 a year at work.  If that person stayed home with their kids and collected unemployment, it would be $51,627.

Crunch the numbers another way and add federal stimulus, and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce calculated an unemployed worker receives $35 an hour.

“In Illinois alone, there are tens of thousands of unfilled jobs. Employers are offering substantially higher wages, employment bonuses and taking other steps to encourage people to return to work,” the chamber wrote in an open letter to Gov. J.B. Pritzker. “The problem is employers cannot compete with the approximate $35 per hour unemployed workers have received over the last four months as a result of enhanced UI benefits, tax credits, and stimulus payments.”

The above snips from the Illinois Policy Institute.

America Rescue Plan Ends in September

On September 6 these American Rescue Plan benefits ends.

  • Pandemic Unemployment Assistance from 50 weeks to up to 73 weeks through September 6 
  • An additional $300 in weekly benefits 

It would be fitting if those gaming the system cannot find any job. 

What Reasons Do the Unemployed Give for Turning Down a Job?

“I have enough money from unemployment insurance” is tied for the highest reason.

Add up all the reasons directly tied to unemployment insurance and at least 36% of the unemployed are gaming the system.  

For discussion, please see What Reasons Do the Unemployed Give for Turning Down a Job?

Subscribe!

Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

Subscribers get an email alert of each post as they happen. Read the ones you like and you can unsubscribe at any time.

If you have subscribed and do not get email alerts, please check your spam folder.

Mish

Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

Subscribers get an email alert of each post as they happen. Read the ones you like and you can unsubscribe at any time.

This post originated on MishTalk.Com

Thanks for Tuning In!

Mish

Mike Shedlock

Recommended Articles

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

17 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jackula
Jackula
2 years ago
In Idaho my relatives report a major labor shortage in the low paying jobs. Unemployment benefits were cut off some time ago. Yeah there are some folks gaming the system but in many cases folks went off and tried to start a business or something more stable and less demeaning. My neice started a chef school and is pretty successfull so far getting TV time on the local Boise stations for free. Same with several folks I know here in LA in the restuarant industry. Sure there are some deadbeats out there but for the most part Americans still have the entreprenurial spirit..the pandemic was a great time to try to start your own business and get paid to do it.
0
Reply
oee
oee
2 years ago
This the same canard that employers in Britain said…100 years ago. They claimed the dole was keeping them from hiring maids for the mansions (castles).  The unemployed create job! Per econ figures  the benefits pump 1.7 dollars per $ 1.00,, of benefits. Also, where are robots? that were supposed to take the jobs? If it were true, then there would not be shortages. 
The employers are either liars or grossly incompetents who could not manage  wh**re house even if if their life depended on it! 
0
Reply
Bam_Man
Bam_Man
2 years ago
September 6th is less than 6 weeks away.
Those who have been sitting back and collecting the pandemic unemployment benefits for the past 15 months may be in for a rude awakening on that date.
0
Reply
LawrenceBird
LawrenceBird
2 years ago
Disappointed in you Mish.  Did you actually look at the few figures posted in that “article”? 
 Maximum unemployment benefits – which are set based on the average wage
of a person paying into unemployment – are currently $805 per week for
single, childless Illinoisans. That is $505 from the state and $300 from
federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation funds.  … Across all recipients, the average benefit paid out was $364.76 as of May 2021 plus the additional $300.
A recipient with a child can receive up to $993 in weekly benefits. The
state gives a maximum of $693 to individuals with children, regardless
of how many children, plus the $300 from the federal government.
The state gives a max additional of $188 for children.   So the reality is the average recipient, if they have any children, would get no more than  $44.3K/yr.   If they have none, $34.6K.  On a 52 week, 40 hour per schedule that is $16.62/hr for the no kid case.   So in a pandemic, the Federal assistance managed to just get them over $15/hr in a state with a high cost of living. 
0
Reply
whirlaway
whirlaway
2 years ago
Reply to  LawrenceBird
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
― Mark Twain
0
Reply
TexasTim65
TexasTim65
2 years ago
Reply to  LawrenceBird
OK, but there is other income for these people beyond the UI.
The stimulus payments for example is something like 2500 a person so if you had 2 kids it would be 7500 more dollars or 600+ more per month.
Also unemployed people (esp single mothers) get plenty of social assistance (SNAP, rent assistance etc) too if they apply for it. That can easily be another few hundred more a month.
When you add up all these things (UI, stimulus, SNAP, rent assistance etc) is when you get to the 35/hr benefit (or ~50K a year number). Sure, it’s not 1 giant paycheck like working people earn but it’s still the equivalent.
0
Reply
Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  LawrenceBird
While unemployment is the largest single benefit, it is only one of many benefits. There is also medicaid, housing assistance, and assistance for food, energy, and more. Mish did a detailed analysis some years ago and found that an employed person with one child had a higher standard of living with no income than with $60,000, though it was not a smooth curve. There were steps at various income levels, where certain benefits vanished, so for example, making $29,900 was much better than making $31,0000. I’ll try to find a link to it somewhere.
I suspect that when you factor in all the benefits, and not just unemployment, the $35/hr is not far off.
0
Reply
whirlaway
whirlaway
2 years ago
The elephant in the room is the $50 trillion stolen from the bottom 90% over the last 45 years.  But don’t pay attention to that.  It is just a measly $50 trillion!    

link to time.com

0
Reply
RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  whirlaway
There is no such thing as income equality. It is a fiction.
Tom Hanks gets paid what, $20 million or something, a movie?
The real elephant in the room is the long term debt cycle and the long term inflation/deflation cycle. What goes around, comes around, again, just as empires rise and empires fall, back to where they were before the rise.
0
Reply
Jerry
Jerry
2 years ago

Covid unemployment programs are the first massive scale trial that proves for the first time unequivocally that universal basic income works ……….oops, I guess not …

0
Reply
Six000mileyear
Six000mileyear
2 years ago
Reply to  Jerry
Price inflation is quickly adjusting the definition of “works” because spending power is decreasing rapidly, and governments are running deficits that are unsustainable. At some point lenders will conclude tax revenues are insufficient to back borrowed money, and then things fall apart.
0
Reply
PostCambrian
PostCambrian
2 years ago
I guess it depends on what your definition of “gaming the system” is. Everyone decides what is best for them, to work or not to work, based upon their individual situation including available unemployment benefits. I will be the first to admit that unemployment benefits influence people not to take work however I am not sure if it is “gaming” the system if they are playing by the system’s rules. Maybe the rules are written poorly. I don’t see a lot of complaints when wealthy individuals and businesses “game” the system.
0
Reply
numike
numike
2 years ago
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
― W.C. Fields
0
Reply
shamrock
shamrock
2 years ago
I thought this was bullshit but if anything they are understating the problem, counting only the unemployment check and not all the other payments like food stamps and child tax credits.  The maximum unemployment benefit for someone with children in $693 from the state and $300 from Biden.  That’s nearly $25/hr.  And guess what, with the covid surge coinciding with the expiration of the $300 federal on September 6th you know damn well it will be extended.
0
Reply
tbergerson
tbergerson
2 years ago
Yeah.  BS.  At 600 a week, which would be generous, state and federal, which again, ends in 6 weeks, thats maybe a rate of less than $30k, and it is temporary, extended, but temporary.  The real problem with labor in America is we have shipped most of the jobs paying $50k-100k overseas.  We have hollowed out the work force.  I believe in  general Ricardian principles more than most, but the fact is, by bringing China into the global trading system we have destroyed labor.  Which is a large part of why the take of national output for labor has dwindled while the take from capital has surged.  To a point I might ad that has now entered untenable territory.
0
Reply
SHOfan
SHOfan
2 years ago
Reply to  tbergerson
Absolutely true.  The outsourcing of labor has left the workforce competing for fewer jobs, many of which are box stores.  It also has impacted the fall in productivity.  
We now have low workforce growth and low productivity growth.  Result: Low economic growth.  It won’ be easy to get out of this.
0
Reply
whirlaway
whirlaway
2 years ago
Reply to  tbergerson
Agreed.
“I have long made the case that manufacturing, energy and food are all fundamentally national security issues. Those benefiting from “free trade” (there is no such thing, that’s just a handy PR cover) have sold the unwary the fraudulent notion that “everyone benefits” from globalization. Nothing could be further from reality. A handful of corporate insiders and financiers have benefited at the expense of everyone else.”

link to oftwominds.com

0
Reply

Stay Informed

Subscribe to MishTalk

You will receive all messages from this feed and they will be delivered by email.