(Image: AP)
NPR Illinois interviewed Beth Gutelius, research director for the Center for Urban Economic Development at UIC, in a story about Illinois maintaining pandemic-enhanced weekly unemployment benefits as business leaders point to a labor shortage. Gutelius addresses the argument that heightened unemployment benefits keep people from pursuing jobs.
Beth Gutelius, research director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois – Chicago, said the argument about generous unemployment benefits preventing people from getting jobs is “thinly veiled” sentiment similar to long-debunked theories that individuals on welfare are “lazy.”
Gutelius, who has spent years researching warehouse workers in particular, says people are running up against long-running systemic problems in the American economy. Gutelius told NPR Illinois she believes workers from all backgrounds in recent years — but especially during the pandemic — have opened their eyes to three issues: jobs that offer wages so low they’re unlivable, lack of affordable childcare and lack of paid leave at many jobs, especially low-wage employment.
