Take a job, or shove it

Joe hits exploiters

As business owners from coast to coast say they can’t find enough workers willing to come back to work, President Biden on Monday said he wants to make sure people offered a job either take it or lose the generous COVID-19 unemployment benefits.

“The law is clear: If you’re receiving unemployment benefits and you’re offered a suitable job, you can’t refuse that job and just keep getting the unemployment benefits,” Biden said at the White House.

“No one should be allowed to game the system and we will insist that the law is followed.”

Biden didn’t say how current rules could be more strictly enforced. States administer unemployment benefits and many are bedeviled by outdated and inefficient computer systems.

The president added, “Let’s not take our eye off the ball. Families who are just trying to put food on the table, keep a roof over their head, they aren’t the problem.”

Biden made the comments even as White House press secretary Jen Psaki insisted that the benefits, which pay some people more than lowwage jobs, were not the cause of disappointing employment numbers released last week.

Psaki told reporters at her daily briefing, “We don’t see evidence that extra unemployment insurance is a major driver in people not rejoining the workforce.”

Biden tried to present a rosy overall take on the nation’s recovery, saying the economy was moving in the “right direction” despite disappointing job growth. And he called on Congress to pass his $4 trillion “infrastructure and families” plans.

He also argued that companies, many of them having suffered huge losses after a year of pandemic shutdowns and other restrictions, and still not fully back to 100 percent capacity, may be to blame for failing to lure workers back with higher pay.

“My expectation is that as our economy comes back, these companies will provide fair wages and safe work environments. And if they do, they’ll find plenty of workers, and we’re all going to come out of this together better than before,” he said.

A federal report on Friday revealed slower-than-anticipated job growth in April. The US added just 266,000 new jobs — far below estimates of around 1 million as the economy rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US Chamber of Commerce blamed a $300 weekly federal supplement for the unemployed and called on the government to end it before it expires in September.