Ohio Could Make Child Labor Great Again
Ohio Could Make Child Labor Great Again
"Bipartisan" is usually never a good word in Ohio politics.
You might have heard while you were trying to keep your loved ones healthy throughout the last two years of the pandemic that there is a labor shortage in America.
Personally, I’m inclined to think that if such a shortage is real, it’s due to small business tyrants refusing to pay living wages to their workers and our country losing at least 700,000 people during a highly predictable pandemic.
Of course, the Republican hobgoblins that run our state pinned the labor shortage on lazy poor people that were staying at home collecting robust unemployment benefits rather than toiling for minimum wage and no benefits under the auspicious eye of small business tyrants who think they’re a Constitutionally protected class.
Here is “moderate” Republican Senator Rob Portman’s website in May:
With the economy heating up, businesses across the state of Ohio and the nation are looking to hire but increasingly unable to fill job openings. Although 9.8 million Americans are unemployed, there are currently 8.1 million jobs waiting to be filled, the highest in our nation’s history.
The disparity can be explained, in part, by the $300 per week federal unemployment insurance (UI) supplement that, when combined with the state unemployment benefits, has created a situation where more than 40 percent of workers can make more staying home than they would earn returning to work.
Senator Portman has led efforts in Congress to end the enhanced unemployment benefit and encourage a return to work. He notes that with vaccines widely available and a record number of job openings, there is no reason the federal government should be paying people not to work. Meanwhile, 21 states, including Ohio, have taken matters into their own hands by deciding to phase out the $300 per week supplement.
Did any of the reactionary prognostications come to bear? No. Quite the opposite, actually.
From Greg Iacuri of msnbc.com in September:
There remains little evidence that states successfully nudged people back to work by ending federal unemployment benefits early, according to economists.
Twenty-six states withdrew pandemic-era jobless support in June or July. Their governors, predominantly Republican, believed enhanced jobless aid offered an incentive to stay home instead of work.
Data suggests other factors are playing a larger role, according to economists. They cite ongoing health concerns, child-care issues and expanded savings among a host of issues sidelining workers even amid record job openings.
Federal benefit programs officially ended on Labor Day in the remaining states. This “unemployment cliff” impacted more than 8.5 million people, who lost all their benefits, Labor Department data issued Thursday suggests.
Ah,,, well,,, nevertheless,,,
The Republicans didn’t reflect on their own social policy failures. Instead they recruited one of the bigger Democratic stooges in the State Legislature to proposition a “bipartisan bill” that will make it easier for small business tyrants to exploit the labor of 14 and 15-year-olds.
Granted, this bill only got introduced yesterday so there’s a long way to until the state officially chips away at child labor laws. Senator Maharath should be ashamed for falling for the okie doke regardless.
We keep hearing about what a great time it is to quit your job and go find a new one. And that’s true. But don’t think the employer class doesn’t see an equal opportunity on their end.
Big Business is looking to chip away at basic labor laws as a testing ground to see what they can ultimately get away with. And make no mistake, they’d much rather exploit teens than pay adults a living wage. That’s the kind of mentality we’re up against for *checks watch* the rest of our lives.
THOSE WMDs. An idea to restore Cooper Stadium… Notes on the fecundity of trees, ideas and classrooms… Democrats come to grips with Building Back Smaller… It’s not about the dopamine… Brownshirts vs. the Board of Education… Strega Nona is not a communist.