"68 percent of those that are currently unemployed can now bring home more money than when they were actually employed…"

In Maggie's Farm, Dr. Joy Bliss reports,

I spoke with one of my local pharmacists today. He was harried. I asked him what was up. He told me all four of his assistants had taken a leave from work, then got copies of their unemployment papers from the government.

They are all getting $1600/week from COVID unemployment, and he only pays them about $1000/week.

He is an immigrant from Russia. He was not happy with the situation. Stereotypically cranky Russian. Asked me "Where is the work ethic?" How did he even know about that old fashioned phrase?

Dr. Bliss then links to an article by Michael Snyder linked to by Tyler Durden in Zero Hedge. Snyder writes in part,

Over the past couple of months, 36.5 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and Congress understandably wanted to do something to address this unprecedented spike in unemployment. But by giving all of these unemployed workers a repeating 600 dollar bonus on top of existing unemployment benefits, Congress has actually created a very powerful incentive for Americans to be unemployed and to stay unemployed for as long as the bonuses last.

According to a group of prominent economists at the University of Chicago, 68 percent of those that are currently unemployed can now bring home more money than when they were actually employed…

Just consider what restaurant and hotel workers must be thinking about now. According to CNBC, the average unemployed worker in that industry is now eligible to collect “182% of their previous wages”…

...Just recently, Facebook conducted a survey of “86,000 small and medium-sized business owners”, and the results of that survey were quite startling…

About a third of small businesses forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic say they won’t be able to reopen due to an inability to pay bills or rent, a Facebook survery has found.

More than half of the business owners surveyed by Facebook have also said they don’t expect to be able to rehire the same amount of workers that they employed prior to the pandemic.

More specifically, the survey discovered that just 45 percent of all small and medium-sized business owners plan to rehire the same number of employees that they previously had.

Read more here.