Eric Morath

speaker

273 appearances 6 recordings 1 series first heard Sep 2017 last heard Sep 2020

Eric Morath’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · Coronavirus Relief: Some Workers Make More Than on the Job · 29 Apr 2020 podcast

And others are just saying, hey, I'm better off on these benefits than I am going to work, especially if you're talking about a job that pays $15 an hour or less.

Well, it puts the business owner in a hard place for a couple of reasons.

One is we're starting to see states reopen and they want to call back their workers.

And if you think about a restaurant or a retailer in a state like South Carolina that's reopening, the minimum wage there is $7.25 an hour.

So even someone that's making double that

and in some cases that's the highest paid employee at a store that's not a manager, they're still would be better off receiving seven or $800 a week in unemployment benefits.

The other issue is also in this very same law that included the $600 is this Paycheck Protection Program, which says loans can be forgiven

if employers bring people back onto payrolls.

So we talked to an owner of some car washes in the Albany, New York area, and he's saying, hey, guys, you got to come back to work.

He only pays them $13 an hour.

They're making $23 an hour on unemployment benefits.

Yeah, so the restaurant owners face this tricky situation of they really don't know how much demand there is for dining services.

And some states that are planning to reopen are saying they need to limit the capacity.

Maybe in Texas, I think it's 25% of the normal capacity of a restaurant.

So they're in a spot where they're like, should I recall these workers?

Some of them are going to be upset because they're going to get paid less, especially because the tips won't be as good.

Or should I wait and see if demand picks up and maybe I'll need them in July or August and they'll be more willing to come back?

If you tell them to come back and they refuse to do so, you're probably severing that employment relationship, especially if you report them to authorities and say, hey, this person has a job opportunity and instead they're choosing to stay on benefits.

I think there is a chance of the economy benefits because people that earn $900 or less per week are more likely to go out and spend the money.

So as the economy reopens, you know, they'll be out shopping and maybe have a bit of pent up demand for goods and services they weren't able to buy when affected by this pandemic.

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