Spartz: “Federal government has to stop incentivizing people not to work”
U.S. Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.-05) hosted a roundtable discussion at the Ivy Tech Community College Hamilton County campus Tuesday afternoon with education and workforce development providers and Central Indiana business leaders.
During the roundtable, employers highlighted the significant challenges they are having in filling job openings, while applauding some of the successful public-private partnerships now underway to address the situation, such as the state’s focus on work-based learning and adult education.
More than two dozen business leaders representing health care, manufacturing, construction, and technology industries, participated in the discussion with Congresswoman Victoria Spartz. (Photo provided)
“The federal government has to stop incentivizing people not to work,” Rep. Spartz said. “Employers continue to express their frustrations with labor shortages and how the recent COVID relief bill added more perverse incentives for people not to work. I appreciate the Region 5 Workforce Development Board and Ivy Tech Community College for hosting the productive roundtable discussion.”
More than two dozen business leaders representing health care, manufacturing, construction, and technology industries, participated in the discussion. Representatives from the Hinds Career Center, which provide adult basic education services, the Excel Center in Noblesville, Ivy Tech Community College, and Indiana’s Office of Work-Based Learning and Apprenticeship were in attendance and highlighted their efforts to bridge Indiana’s skills gap and attract more workers to the state.
While Indiana’s unemployment rate has recovered to 3.9 percent and is the best in the Midwest, Indiana’s private sector employment is still currently 118,200 below its December 2019 peak. There are approximately that many job openings currently available to Hoosiers as businesses struggle to find qualified workers willing to fill vacancies.
The House Education and Labor Committee, of which Congresswoman Spartz is a member, will look into these issues as it holds hearings on the reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. This legislation will provide federal funding for workforce development, training, and education programs.
The federal government has to stop incentivizing people to not work is a lie being told by republicans and businesses who can’t fill open positions with less than livable wages. Increase wages and people will come.Extra 300 dollars is no incentive to not work. Where were any regular people on this roundtable, were there any unemployed people on the roundtable, where was the diversity on the roundtable? It is very easy for people with money and good paying jobs to cast stones and those who are struggling to make ends meet.If the business leaders want to have a honest discussion on how they can increase employment this can easily be done but not with a misleading roundtable whose only goal is to blame the very people they pretend to be trying to help. Businesses and republicans are against raising the minimum wage and now they can’t find workers. Well water is indeed wet.
For the win!
Completely agree! Very well said.
Start treating employees like they are humans. Pay them more. Offer more benefits. Raise you prices to help offset the costs. We are not robots to just work until you are done with us and then just let us go. PAY US MORE AND OFFER BENEFITS!!!! The US government was the only one offering any help to the people.