Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that people will begin to work once they run out of savings.
“You’ve got a whole lot of people sitting on the sidelines because, frankly, they’re flush for the moment,” he said at an event in his home state of Kentucky. “What we’ve got to hope is once they run out of money, they’ll start concluding it’s better to work than not to work.”
It’s not the first time he’s made that argument. McConnell criticized the COVID stimulus package in a March 2021 interview with Fox News, and said Americans may decide not to return to work as a result of the $1,400 stimulus check. “There is a concern about making it more advantageous to stay home rather than going back to work,” he said.
Republicans opposed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill that President Joe Biden signed into law in March 2021. They argued that the bill was too costly and had provisions unrelated to fighting the pandemic. The bill included $1,400 in direct payments to Americans, money to help schools and colleges reopen, and funding for vaccine distribution.
In April, employers posted 11.4 million jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A year earlier, that number was 9.3 million, and in April 2019, it was only 7.4 million.
Many workers between the ages of 25 to 54 cited that they left the workforce during COVID-19 due to health concerns, child care responsibilities, enhanced unemployment benefits, career changes, and other reasons.
Contributing: Maureen Grope, Paul Davidson
Labor shortage:College grads are snaring high-paying jobs. How the labor shortage made way for better benefits
