Easing the Labor Crisis: Here’s What States Can Do
- BY Sarah Coffey
“Now Hiring” signs hang in the windows of most businesses these days, and we have the government to thank for that. Expanded welfare, removing welfare work requirements, and other disincentives to work have left this country facing a labor shortage at crisis levels.
FGA Senior Fellow Scott Centorino recently joined The Steve Gruber Show to discuss how states can unleash economic recovery and solve the labor crisis with one tool: State employment and training programs.
By assigning able-bodied adults on food stamps slots in their employment and training programs, states can get people back to work and in turn, get their economies moving again.
More from The Steve Gruber Show:
“We all see [the worker shortage] in every shop window, every restaurant window. One of the causes of that is the federal government has suspended work requirements for food stamps…there are over 40 million people on food stamps in America right now. That’s more than the entire population of Canada.
“…there’s another work requirement that applies to more people, but it only works if states assign able-bodied adults on food stamps to slots in their employment and training programs. And states for the last 30 years haven’t been doing that.
“But right now, with that other work requirement paused, they can start doing that and get more people off the sidelines and back to work.
“People are following incentives… If you incentivize people to stay in dependency and stay in welfare programs, they’re going to do it. If it pays to stay unemployed and stay out of the workforce, people are going to do that. On the other hand, if you incentivize people to work, people are going to do that instead. The states that are prioritizing work are the ones that are seeing that labor force participation problem start to get better.”
Listen to the full interview here.
