Jim Renacci: Blame extreme welfare benefits for labor shortage. Ohioans paid not to work
Jim Renacci has operated 60 businesses across Ohio. He served four terms in the U.S. Congress and was the 2018 Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Ohio and a 2022 candidate for governor. He is now chairman of American Greatness Fund which aims to furthers policies set forth in 2016 of the MAGA Movement.
A new study from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity — a Maryland-based nonprofit co-founded by American Legislative Exchange Council economists Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore — shows what we have all long suspected: overly generous welfare benefits are paying Americans not to work.
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This study, authored by senior fellows Casey Mulligan and E.J. Antoni, illustrates that in three states, a family of four can receive over $100,000 in annualized cash and benefits to stay home and not work.
In another fourteen states, that same family of four can earned over $80,000 in benefits.
Ohio ranks eighteenth nationally with annual benefits totaling $62,051 per year, equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $16.00 if both adults were working.
But Ohio ranks third overall when looking at our neighboring states. Only Kentucky and Pennsylvania rank higher than Ohio. Meanwhile, Indiana, Michigan, and West Virginia rank much lower than Ohio. Both Florida and Tennessee, which are low tax havens favored by retiring Ohioans, are near the very bottom of these states.
The study shows even more generous benefits when you look at joint unemployment insurance and subsidies provided via the American Care Act commonly called Obamacare.
Under that calculation, an Ohio family of four can receive the annual equivalent of $66,506 or $17 per hour if both adults were employed.
As a result, this Ohio family of four can receive more income by staying at home and not working than if they were employed either as a heavy and tractor trailer truck driver ($64,119), a machinist ($58,428), or as a retail associate ($39,415).
Paying people not to work has disastrous consequences both on a state-by-state basis and nationwide. America is currently missing over 3 million workers that were employed prior to the COVID19 crisis but haven’t yet returned to work.
Here, in Ohio there were 305,415 job openings as of October 13. Meanwhile, unemployment figures for that same month show a total of 242,000 Ohioans were unemployed.
More:Ohio adds 15,700 jobs in October, the most since February
Paying people to stay home, instead of working, is not a sustainable fiscal policy for either our states or our nation. Our national deficit and debt are spiraling out of control and businesses cannot fill jobs and grow.
These policies also have moral consequences.
Watching parents stay home and abuse drugs and alcohol, instead of working, leads to generations of poverty and abuse. Our state and federal government must utilize more targeted benefits and provide incentives to return to work.
Jim Renacci has operated 60 Ohio businesses. He served four terms in the U.S. Congress and was the 2018 Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Ohio and a 2022 candidate for governor. He is now chairman of American Greatness Fund which aims to furthers policies set forth in 2016 of the MAGA Movement.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Jim Renacci: Extreme welfare benefits mean Ohioans better off not working
