First off, your math is terrible. $300 x 4 x 12 is $14,400, not $24,000. I'm also not sure why you didn't just go $300 x 52 ($15,600). Obviously, either way, it is significantly less than what you posted, so that would seem to help your point.
However, you're math skills are about on par with your research skills and your critical thinking skills.
First, the $300 is just the federal bump. People also make anywhere from $245 to $800 in state benefits, so businesses would have to pay between $13.63 to $27 per hour ($28,340 to $57,200) to match that. And that is just to match it - who is going to work 40 hours per week when they can get the same thing for working 0 hours?
But it is not just that. Many businesses, particularly those in the service industry, rely on people who don't need to work 40 hours a week. College students, for example, make up a big part of restaurant and bar staffs. Many take these jobs in addition to school work & only want to work 20-25 hours per week. To match the unemployment benefits, they would need to make $21.80 to $44.00 per hour.
But it's not just that. Many college students just have these jobs to make enough money to get by. They'd rather not have the job at all -- school work is enough work, plus they'd rather have the time off to sleep and party. If $300/week covers their expenses, a lot would still turn down a job even if it paid twice that.
Finally, by it's very nature, the service industry needs part time employees. This isn't like WalMart or Amazon, restaurants and bars have windows in which they need a lot of employees, while only needing a few the rest of the time. A restaurant may need 18 servers from 6pm to 9pm, but only 4 before and after that. It's going to need 18 employees for the night, but on about a half dozen will be able to work an 8 hour shift. Normally, that's ok - there's always people willing to work 3-4 hours a night to make extra money. Now, there's not.
The truth is, these places are not having issues filling full time roles, which is pretty much all you talked about in your column. They're having trouble filling the part time roles. And I've explained why those part time roles are essential.
Seriously, if you're not going to use critical thinking skills, or are unwilling to look past your preconceived notions, why are you writing a column at all?
The rest of your argument seems to be "our current economy depends on people taking jobs that can't pay the bills," which again seems to be the problem of the employers to sort out, not for part-time employees to make up.
If a business depends on part time employees and what they offer isn't bringing in part-time employees, then the business model is a failure and that's really not anyone's problem except the business owner. Devise a new model. No one is entitled to hire part-time employees just because they can't afford full time employees for the same roles.
If they can't get part-time employees and they *need* part time employees, it's because the price they're offering is too low.
Labor economics doesn't suddenly stop abiding by the rules of supply and demand just because you change the focus to part-time work instead of full-time work. The same principles apply. It's the same forces at work. If there's a "shortage" of part time work, it's only relative to the price that employers are offering for the part-time work.
Muddying up the waters and acting like "part time" labor operates under some sort of different economic logic than "full time" labor isn't critical thinking, it's obfuscation. Critical thinking is helpful in fostering deeper analyses; obfuscation is not.
First off, your math is terrible. $300 x 4 x 12 is $14,400, not $24,000. I'm also not sure why you didn't just go $300 x 52 ($15,600). Obviously, either way, it is significantly less than what you posted, so that would seem to help your point.
However, you're math skills are about on par with your research skills and your critical thinking skills.
First, the $300 is just the federal bump. People also make anywhere from $245 to $800 in state benefits, so businesses would have to pay between $13.63 to $27 per hour ($28,340 to $57,200) to match that. And that is just to match it - who is going to work 40 hours per week when they can get the same thing for working 0 hours?
But it is not just that. Many businesses, particularly those in the service industry, rely on people who don't need to work 40 hours a week. College students, for example, make up a big part of restaurant and bar staffs. Many take these jobs in addition to school work & only want to work 20-25 hours per week. To match the unemployment benefits, they would need to make $21.80 to $44.00 per hour.
But it's not just that. Many college students just have these jobs to make enough money to get by. They'd rather not have the job at all -- school work is enough work, plus they'd rather have the time off to sleep and party. If $300/week covers their expenses, a lot would still turn down a job even if it paid twice that.
Finally, by it's very nature, the service industry needs part time employees. This isn't like WalMart or Amazon, restaurants and bars have windows in which they need a lot of employees, while only needing a few the rest of the time. A restaurant may need 18 servers from 6pm to 9pm, but only 4 before and after that. It's going to need 18 employees for the night, but on about a half dozen will be able to work an 8 hour shift. Normally, that's ok - there's always people willing to work 3-4 hours a night to make extra money. Now, there's not.
The truth is, these places are not having issues filling full time roles, which is pretty much all you talked about in your column. They're having trouble filling the part time roles. And I've explained why those part time roles are essential.
Seriously, if you're not going to use critical thinking skills, or are unwilling to look past your preconceived notions, why are you writing a column at all?
Ouch, re the math. You're right.
The rest of your argument seems to be "our current economy depends on people taking jobs that can't pay the bills," which again seems to be the problem of the employers to sort out, not for part-time employees to make up.
If a business depends on part time employees and what they offer isn't bringing in part-time employees, then the business model is a failure and that's really not anyone's problem except the business owner. Devise a new model. No one is entitled to hire part-time employees just because they can't afford full time employees for the same roles.
If they can't get part-time employees and they *need* part time employees, it's because the price they're offering is too low.
Labor economics doesn't suddenly stop abiding by the rules of supply and demand just because you change the focus to part-time work instead of full-time work. The same principles apply. It's the same forces at work. If there's a "shortage" of part time work, it's only relative to the price that employers are offering for the part-time work.
Muddying up the waters and acting like "part time" labor operates under some sort of different economic logic than "full time" labor isn't critical thinking, it's obfuscation. Critical thinking is helpful in fostering deeper analyses; obfuscation is not.