With the large increase in unemployment rates in the United States after the pandemic hit, many people have been hesitant to go back to work. This has left many businesses and companies to be short of staff as the country starts to reopen to full capacity after over a year of restrictions. Businesses have started trying to find ways to attract new workers, but a lot of them fail to compete with the unemployment benefits that many Americans are living off. This has led to many challenges and controversies in the workforce. 

Recently, McDonald’s announced that they would be increasing the pay range between $11 and $17 dollars an hour. This is due to the fact that they urgently need more employees to operate their restaurants. The problem is, though, that many people are making either equal to or more than that from unemployment benefits that they have been getting since March of 2020. Most people who come off unemployment benefits to get a job will end up losing money. Also, benefits cannot just be away from a person as it is their only form of income at the moment and doing so would only lead to poverty. 

Additionally, the raise of McDonald’s hourly wages has sparked controversy across the country as well. Many people have gone to social media to express their complaints with this news. An argument that is commonly brought up is that giving McDonald’s employees making $17 an hour devalues their college education. People who have worked hard for years to attain a degree feel as though it is not worth anything. This is because they compare the possibility of a high school teenager making $17 dollars an hour working in fast food to a college graduate barely making the same amount of money. 

All in all, unemployment benefits seem to have caused more harm than good in the long run. They have caused a large decrease in employment rates for an extended period of time and led to businesses making extreme changes to their wages to attract more workers. Overall, unemployment has left the country in an economic hole which is difficult to find a solution for. This keeps people wondering what the next steps are for this country to get back on its feet after the pandemic knocked it down.