What has happened in America with Covid and work? Has there been a shift of not as many people working and businesses being understaffed? The decades-old fight about work requirements for welfare has been rekindled. It is a passionate fight over a simple question – should adults work, train, or volunteer at least part-time to receive welfare? In the aftermath of the Pandemic, the labor participation rate has fallen by 1.2%, meaning three million people have left the workforce. At the same time, the number of current job openings is 3.8 million, higher than before the pandemic. Welfare participation is also up. There are 4.5 million more SNAP participants, and Medicaid enrollment is up by 9.6 million Americans than before the Pandemic.
Work Ethic Drop
These are not good numbers. What happened with Covid and work is that America’s work ethic dropped. That will not sit well with most Americans who foster a culture of hard work. 80% of Americans believe that hard work is its own reward. 87% think you should do something to better yourself or your community if you receive welfare. They support requiring adults to work, train, or volunteer at least part-time to receive welfare (More on public opinion). Yet most federal welfare programs do not have work requirements (More).
Work Requirements in Welfare
Work Requirements in welfare have a long and tortured past, but they should not be controversial. We make the decision hard because we worry about “judging” people. But this is not an exercise in placing blame. A work or volunteer requirement isn’t a punishment or some statement about the person. Instead, it is the opposite. It is a mechanism to pull people into our communities and promote pride. It is a way to show we care, our communities need them, and that we believe in them. People need to know they matter and have something to add to themselves and our communities. Welfare with no strings attached too often hurts pride and isolates people.
The one thing we have all learned with Covid and work it is that too much isolation is not good for any of us. We should use this experience to help the poor. Let’s add work requirements, training, or community service to welfare. Let’s remind people they are important, and we need their contribution to our communities. Good things will happen.
Footnotes
[i] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data Tools. Charts and Applications. Charts for Economic News Releases. Workforce Participation Rate. [Internet]. Retrieved January 5, 2023. Available here. Number of people calculated from total non farm payroll applied to labor participation rate. [153.5 million non farm payroll divided by 62.1% labor participation rate times 1.2% drop in participation rate]. Non farm payroll from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Employment Statistics – CES data. Employment, Hours, and Earnings – National. Top picks. Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted. [Internet]. Retrieved January 5, 2023. Available here.
[ii] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Subjects. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). Top picks. Job openings level, Total nonfarm. [Internet]. Retrieved January 5, 2023. Available Here.
[iii] U.S. Deparatment of Agriculture. USDA Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Data Tables. National and/or State Level Monthly and/or Annual Data. [Internet]. Retrieved January 5, 2023. Available here.
[iv] Medicaid.gov. Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment Data. September 2022 Medicaid & CHIP Enrollment Data Highlights. [Internet]. Retrieved January 5, 2021. Available here. 2019 data from: Medicaid.gov. Medicaid Enrollment Data Collected Through MBES. October – December 2019 Medicaid MBES Enrollment. [Internet]. Retrieved January 9, 2023. Available here.