Last week’s disappointing jobs report revealed the economic pain felt by millions of Americans, but NBC’s senior business correspondent said on Friday that rising joblessness may be just the “pressure we need” to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The Biden administration announced that the U.S. economy added only 266,000 new jobs in April, when unemployment actually rose from 6% to 6.1%. Experts had expected 1 million new jobs and a modest decline in unemployment. CNBC’s Steve Liesman initially thought the numbers — which other media outlets described as “a huge letdown” and “way worse than expected” — were erroneous.
“It’s not that there aren’t jobs; it’s that people aren’t filling them,” Ruhle said on MSNBC’s “Craig Melvin Reports,” which follows her own show.
Many economists believe the glut of job vacancies exists because Congress voted to pay an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision that for many Americans made government support more profitable than income from a job.
“The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Based on the Chamber’s analysis, the $300 benefit results in approximately one in four recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working.”