TAMPA, Fla.- President Joe Biden, Democrats in general, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and lovers of lockdowns, seem content to cudgel us with COVID into becoming wards of the state.
How effective have they been in convincing some of us that Uncle Sam is indeed just a sugar daddy? One Tampa McDonald’s owner knows.
According to Business Insider, Blake Casper, who actually owns 60 McDonald’s franchises around Tampa, directed his team to “do whatever you need to do” in order to hire workers.
Their solution: Pay people $50 just for an interview.
“At this point, if we can’t keep our drive-thrus moving, then I’ll pay $50 for an interview,” Casper told BI.
Capser added that reopenings have contributed to the labor shortage he sees. But so have enhanced unemployment benefits, he told BI, adding that he hasn’t struggled to find workers like this in two decades.
“The biggest challenge out there is the federal government and the state government are going to continue with this unemployment because that is truly creating the incentive to not work right now,” Casper said. “And, how do you blame somebody? You can make more money on unemployment — and so, we’ve got to be at least above that.”
Yet to demonstrate to liberals how markets work, BI pointed out that Casper, like others, is raising his starting wage from $12 an hour — which is already $3 an hour more than Florida’s mandated minimum wage — to $13 just to try to pull people in.
Casper is not alone.
FAT Brands Inc. CEO Andy Wiederhorn, whose restaurants Johnny Rockets and Fatburger, described the situation as a “total nightmare.”
“The most recent stimulus check and unemployment benefits have been a catalyst for people to stay at home” instead of seeking work, he told BI.
The website noted that America’s restaurant industry, as of last month, was down 1.2 million workers from March 2020.
And even as COVID wanes amid herd immunity brought on by natural spread and vaccines, BI observed that some McDonald’s restaurants may keep dining rooms closed until the second half of 2021 because they cannot find workers.
John Motta, a Dunkin’ franchisee who is chairman of the Coalition of Franchisee Association, told BI, “It’s just craziness out there. People are closing early, people are not opening lobbies.”
“This is the COVID of 2021,” Motta added. “This is the pandemic of 2021 — lack of people to work.”
The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses, reported in a survey last month that 42 percent of small business owners claim they cannot find employees.
That was a record high, the NFIB reported.
“Owners,” the survey said, “continue to have difficulty finding qualified workers to fill jobs as they compete with increased unemployment benefits and the pandemic keeping some workers out of the labor force.”
The message from these business leaders is clear: Democrats have successfully created a psychologically perverse value system, where it’s widely viewed as more rewarding to stay home than to work.