As jobless rate rises anew, do unemployed really want to work?
By Dan Chapman

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

11:36 p.m. Thursday, December 16, 2010

An Atlanta janitorial service earlier this week offered $8-an-hour jobs sweeping floors and cleaning toilets and 56 unemployed people said, ‘Yes, indeed, I’m interested and I’ll come apply in person.'

Yet only a handful of the supposed jobseekers showed up for the interview in northern Cobb County. The turnout led Bob Williams, who owns the cleaning company, to question the work ethic of metro Atlanta’s unemployed.

“Somebody told me the other day, ‘I just don’t like this work. I think I’ll go draw unemployment instead,’ ” Williams said. “A lot of people say they want to work, but do they really want to work?”

If he paid $10 an hour he’d fill more positions. “That would probably work,” said Williams, whose company, AccuClean, services office buildings, schools and YMCAs across metro Atlanta. “But then I’m not competitive and I won’t get (cleaning) accounts.”

AccuClean’s hiring struggles reflect the conflicting economic trends that pushed Georgia's unemployment rate to 10.1 percent in November, from 9.8 percent in October, according to Georgia Department of Labor figures released Thursday.

Low-income, less-educated workers suffer a disproportionately high level of joblessness. The unemployment rate for Americans without a high school diploma, for example, is nearly 16 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But do those jobless truly want a job? Some economists and many conservatives argue that extended unemployment benefits keep the jobless rate artificially high by supporting the unemployed who otherwise would have no choice but to take any job. They pressed their case this past month as Congress debated continuing extended benefits for millions of unemployed Americans.


Supporters of extended benefits say that’s a simplistic argument that scapegoats the poor and jobless. Other factors, including no health benefits and lack of transportation, keep the unemployed from accepting low-wage work. And, contrary to popular opinion, jobless Americans who previously had better jobs and pay cling to the benefits longer than their lower-income brethren.

The cleaning industry, forced by recession-wracked contractors to cut costs, continues to pay bottom-rung salaries. An AccuClean restroom cleaner working 40 hours a week, for example, could make $16,640 a year without benefits. The poverty rate for a family of four is $22,050.

“I’d take it. I need a job real bad right now. I got to feed my family,” said Douglas Johnson of Riverdale, 45, an unemployed groundskeeper who applied for an AccuClean job and is waiting to hear if he got it. “The economy is real bad right now and the job opportunities you do have (are) paying like $7.25 an hour. You can’t survive on that.”

Johnson and 252,200 other Georgians have been out of work longer than 27 weeks -- a staggering 54 percent of all unemployed Georgians, according to Thursday's Labor Department report. The number of long-term unemployed workers keeps rising, up nearly 5 percent in November.

“This is not just seasonal or cyclical unemployment we’re seeing; this is really something much more serious,” said Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. “And, while I believe a job is better than no job, people must decide whether an $8 an hour job puts them in a stronger economic position than receiving unemployment insurance benefits.”

AccuClean recently won a bid to clean the Northwest Family YMCA in Kennesaw, along with another Y, and set up a job fair at the Labor Department’s Cobb-Cherokee job center. The 56 prospects signed up online to attend.

Williams spent three hours Wednesday at the Marietta job exchange. Only six of the early enrollees showed up. A Labor Department employee announced AccuClean's openings twice to a packed waiting room, where other unemployed workers awaited benefit and job counseling. Only two people, including Crystal Donahue, joined AccuClean’s job fair.

“I thought that was strange. Opportunity is opportunity. I want to work, even if they’d told me it was $5 an hour,” said Donahue, recently laid off from a temporary computer training job at Grady Hospital. “You have to get in where you can. There’s always more of a chance you’ll get a job when you have a job.”

About 178,000 Georgians pull state or federal unemployment benefits that average $257 per week before taxes. AccuClean toilet scrubbers working 30 hours weekly -- the minimum guarantee -- would earn $240 before taxes. And they’d receive no health or retirement benefits.

They’d also have to transport themselves to the Kennesaw Y. Cars are sometimes a luxury for low-income workers. Gasoline averaged $2.85 a gallon in Atlanta earlier this week. And the nearest bus stop is a few miles from the Kennesaw Y.

Williams, in the janitorial business for three decades, knows the difficulty hiring low-income Atlantans for low-wage work.

“There’s not a lot of difference between being unemployed and maybe getting $9 an hour and taking part-time janitorial work at $8 an hour,” he said. “I’d actually draw that unemployment as long as I can draw it.”

Rules dictate that the unemployed receiving benefits must “actively search” for work or else they can be kicked off insurance rolls. The Labor Department randomly audits recipients and demands job-search records.

Commissioner Thurmond says jobless Georgians, who previously held decent-paying jobs, stick with benefits longer than lesser-paid Georgians as they're reluctant to take just any job.

“People who receive unemployment insurance benefits the longest have higher educational levels and higher earnings prior to being laid off,” he said. “They’re less inclined to take lower paying jobs and, generally, have resources that allow them to remain unemployed for longer periods of time.”


By day’s end, Williams had a couple of promising job candidates, including Kenny Hooper. Hooper, 32, moved recently from North Carolina after losing a warehouse job. He considers unemployment benefits “my fallback,” a last resort if no Atlanta work materializes.

“Jobs are getting too scarce to wait,” said Hooper with a wife and three kids. “You’ve got to grab what’s out there.”

Welcome to the new normal.

I think I'd like to go back to Normal "Classic" now thanks.

Sorry, bro. Nobody not employed by Goldman Sachs is coming out of this with their living standard intact.

I have a 30-hr a week, $10 an hour (after taxes) job, and you can bet your ass I'm pretty thankful.

i get paid well under minimum wage.... i'd probably make more on unemployment.

About once every two weeks i get a person who requests an application and turns it in, just so they can show somewhere that they have actively sought work. They readily, and without shame, admit this. I let them fill out the app, and then call the unemployment office and tell them what is occuring.

about 16 months ago I was unemployed for about 6 months. I busted my ass trying to find work. Went to multiple interviews for jobs I was highly overqualified for and still wasn't hired. Not once did I consider filing for unemployment. I sold a shitload of personal belongings and had to dramatically cut back my lifestyle. I made sacrifices and sometimes went days without eating. Maybe its just me but I thought it was a bad thing to want handouts of money thay I didn't earn and could be used better somewhere else. I actually did apply for cleaning jobs at minimum wage and was turned down because the hiring manager looked at my resume and asked what I was doing there. I said I needed a job and was having a very difficult time finding one and was willing to do whatever I needed to get my bills paid. I didn't think I was above doing any kind of work. I know some people are truly disabled and can't work and for some people benefits are necessary but there shouldn't be benefits available for people just because a job of their liking isn't available at the moment. Those lazy fucks need to suck it up, get over themselves and get off their asses. To me the worst thing you can do is reinforce someone's laziness by rewarding it with money or any kind of handout. If I seem insensitive so be it but I was on the brink of being homeless because of the shitty job market but the last thing I was gonna do was sit on my ass and feel sorry for myself while the taxpayers money paid my bills.

When you're working, you pay taxes that pay for the program while others use it, so I think that's a way of saying you pay into it, and therefore you deserve it for some period at least.

i'm sure the unemployment office doesn't give a shit.

The problem is of course when we don't have enough people working in high enough wage jobs to cover that tab.

I'm not condemning people for using it, but the longer we stretch this the more and more stretched the budget for everything is.

Not to mention these jobs that produce high enough income, can't be government jobs.

I'm not saying it's the best answer (or especially that stretching it out forever at the same dollar amount is a good plan). Just addressing veddar10's ethical problem with taking unemployment.

Im sure they don't either, but i feel better about it if im reporting abuses. I do the same for EBT card abuse.

see, not only do I have an ethical problem with taking it, I don't like paying for it either.

don't mess with adolf skitchler

You're kind of a huge dumbass.