"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty."
 
 – Proverbs 14:23
 
 At the beginning of the pandemic, shopping for groceries and basic household items was like going to a Black Friday sale at Best Buy. Customers arrived in the wee hours of the morn to get that coveted roll of toilet tissue or bottle of bleach. It was wall-to-wall pandemonium as sparsely stocked shelves emptied within hours.

Anyone who has been to the retail store lately must imagine they are caught in a pandemic time-warp. The lines remain long and many items in plastic bottles and aluminum cans are in short supply. And others that went AOL are back as brand X or miraculously rematerialized in smaller containers at ludicrously high prices.

The problems with supply and demand during the pandemic have transformed into shortages of products produced by industries that rely on unskilled or semi-skilled U.S. labor. This supply deficit has fueled unwarranted increases in wages for basic labor. And every shopper is paying dearly for this with escalating prices.

The pandemic caused the biggest global recession in history. In the U.S., over 20 million people lost their jobs. To help unemployed workers survive the economic lockdown, Congress passed an innovative $600 per week federal unemployment package.

"We have shown America that their government works for them."

– Donald Trump

During the third quarter of 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Economics showed economic output surged by 33% as vaccinations increased and state economies reopened. Joe Biden inherited an economy that was recovering beyond expectations. All he had to do was follow the economic formula that Trump's advisers put into place.

But liberal logic prevailed. Instead of continuing Trump's successful policies, the stalwart progressive Biden gifted unemployed workers another $300 a week for the rest of the year. Data from the Economic Policy Institute shows the average unemployed U.S. worker is pocketing a generous $36,000 yearly for not working.

According to the Employment Policy Research Institute, over half of the middle-skilled workers earn an average of $30,000 annually and 36% earn $35,000 or more. Middle-skill jobs are those that require a high school diploma, basic ability and training but no college degree. These include transportation and factory jobs, food preparation, packaging, retail sales clerks, and many service industry jobs.

Many non-workers are making more than they did working, and not paying a dime in taxes while those that are working foot the bill for this. The CBO predicts this will add billions to the deficit since this money is tax free. The only way this shortfall can be replaced is with across the board tax increases on workers and businesses.

"Increasing corporate tax rates will help a lot of struggling families."

– Joe Biden

At a recent news conference, one reporter asked Biden about the unsettling trend of millions of jobs going unfilled in an economy that was rapidly improving. He asked Biden if he thought his generous unemployment benefits were eroding the incentive to work. Biden replied, "My economic advisers and I see absolutely no evidence to support this. You can't believe everything you've been hearing."