Heidi Shierholz, a former Labor Department chief economist who now works at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, argued that the seemingly slow rebound of the labor market might not be as dire as it seems.
“That’s not always a bad thing,” she said of the pace of job gains.
If the extra benefits allow people to find a more suitable job, or wait for a higher offer, she said, the economy may end up on more productive footing than a situation in which desperate people take anything that’s available to them, regardless of wage or difficulty.
“If the benefits make it possible for people not to have to take a terrible job, that’s efficiency enhancing,” Shierholz added.
Although the April and May jobs reports fell short of expectations, she noted, they also showed the economy steadily adding about a half-million jobs a month, rising wages and a concentration of growth in the low-wage leisure sector that should be most affected by high unemployment benefits.
“Strong job growth and higher wages? That’s the kind of recovery we want to see,” Shierholz said.
While the rate of job gains implies that the labor market will not completely recover for more than a year, that would still far outpace the anemic aftermath of the Great Recession and the austerity policies that followed.