Insult to Injury: The Unemployed Need Not Apply

Years ago, a number of businesses posted signs stating, "Irish need not apply" along with their "Help Wanted" notices. Later, with the northern migration of many black people from the south, the sign became "Colored need not apply." Today, though the actual obnoxious sign may be gone from the window, the prevalent thought in too many businesses is "Unemployed need not apply." The idea, under slightly different wording, has already begun to appear in such websites as Careerbuilder.com and Monster.com, according to the AARP.

To many business's short-sighted way of thinking, the unemployed are damaged goods. If they are out of work, surely it must be their own damn fault. Never mind that the company they worked for may have outsourced their jobs to Mexico, or lack of sales may have caused the workers with the least seniority to be laid off, regardless of their ability. Far better the executives should poach a savvy, experienced worker from a competitor.

That is all well and good for the savvy, experienced, already-employed worker, but what about the person, and millions of other people, who still needs a job? Yes, yes, in every workforce throughout every era, there have always been screw-ups who are probably unfit to hold any job whatsoever, but they are a very small percentage of the present unemployed. Such people can be effectively screened through interviews and, where possible, testing, that is to say if an enterprise has bothered to hire a human resources department willing to do its job.

The cheap shot is to blame the administration, particularly President Obama. Those who are most eager to cast aspersions are just as eager to strap on the blinders when it comes to the role of corporate America in this situation. As I stated in an earlier essay, the people with the power to hand out jobs have not been doing their bit, considering the billions of dollars (in fact, well over a trillion) they have collectively generated in profits. Add to that behavior the reluctance to hire the unemployed, and you have a situation that has become simply outrageous.

The EEOC is aware of this problem and has been looking into how it may try to thwart it. There is no federal law on the books to prohibit hiring discrimination against the unemployed. Inasmuch as a significant number of these out-of-work people are minorities, women or seniors, the Commission believes it can attack the problem from that angle. While that may be a noble sentiment, it is probably not the way to fix the problem. For one thing, it does not cover all the unemployed. For another, even if you had a law against such discrimination, it would be too easy for potential employers to weasel out of its effects.

Far more constructive is the President's proposed job creation bill (costing about $33 billion), which will give employers a $5,000 tax break for each newly-hired employee. The proposed bill also provides tax incentives for raising existing employees' pay.

The administration claims there are measures in the bill to keep businesses from "gaming" the system, and that is as it should be. Still, the bill, as it seems to stand now, can use some improvement.

First of all, I think we should forget about giving tax breaks for pay increases. It is one thing to get the jobless back to work and dispel much of the fear that is so badly hampering the growth of our economy. It is quite another to artificially drive up wages. As things stand now, pay raises should still be based on a company's prosperity, not its tax structure. In addition, the deficit hawks have a point: you can't go throwing yet even more money into the pot just because something is a good idea. It has to be an extremely good idea, bordering on the necessary.

The second and more important thing the bill needs to do is to specify that the full tax break only applies to hiring the unemployed. Perhaps a lesser amount could be offered to a company that finds a job for someone who already has one (since, in theory, the vacated job would have to be filled), but getting the unemployed, as opposed to the employed, back to work needs to be the thrust of the bill. Let us face the facts: the people with the bucks cannot be jawboned into doing the right thing and, to a great extent, they cannot be threatened. To get what you want for America, Mr. President, you will have to do what politicians the world over are most familiar with: you will have to bribe them.

Under ordinary circumstances, most Republicans would be pleased with a proposal that offered a nice tax break to their friends in the business community. The present bill, sadly, does not seem to have a lot of traction because, as the party faithful are always quick to remember, THERE IS A BLACK MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Sources

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012803674.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/opinion/20sun2.html

AARP Bulletin, Vol. 52, #5