Nope, not bullshit at all. Ask some of the people I won't be hiring back. They decided to go for the easy buck and we aren't going to let them come back.
At the very beginning of this I had one guy on a crew that said he was worried about catching it. All of our people were required to wear 1/2 face respirators with P100 filters on them if they were in a crew van or could not social distance. They were required to have their temp taken twice a day and the plant scanned them each morning as well. They had to answer the questionnaires each day and all the other requirements we put into place and ... he didn't feel safe so he quit and started drawing UI along with the $600 (at that time) enhanced federal money.
This guy was making $15/hour and getting 10 hours overtime every week. That comes out to $825/week.
In Texas this made him eligible for $315/week UI and add the $600 enhanced money ... voila! $915/week. No alarm clock. No gas spent getting to work. Could work for cash on the side.
Some of our $19/hour hands work out this way;
$19/hour and 10 hours overtime = $1,045/week. On UI those people were paid $1,102. Now our $19/hour hands lost $100 per diem so they 'lost' $600/week there, but again, no alarm, no gas to get to work, etc.
Remove the per diem and those making $19/hour were getting more to sit at home.
I seriously don't see why the DUmmies don't get this. Yes I do. It's two fold. You have those over there who have NO understanding of math and how the economy works, then you have those who know how it works, but are going to toe the party line no matter what.
I would pay good money for one of the DUmmies to come over and argue this with me if they win. $15/hour has been their battle cry for years. I'm in Texas and $15/hour is pretty good money around here, $19 is really good, and our top welders are in the lower to upper $30's/hour.
KC