One of five stories that are part of this week’s cover feature, “Counting Change: Winners and losers in the rocky restart to the economy.”
Restaurants have faced some of the most devastating challenges since the coronavirus hit: Gov. Kate Brown closed down table service altogether, and now that it’s back and in Phase One, restaurants have to adhere to strict regulations. On top of that, they must now try to lure their employees back—many of whom have grown content on the livable wage provided by unemployment insurance.
Karli Foster opened Café Yumm in the Old Mill District 14 years ago and survived through the Great Recession, eventually expanding operations to a new restaurant near St. Charles Bend off NE Cushing Drive.
“I love serving customers,” she said. “To walk into empty restaurants for the last five weeks was depressing, a very different energy; it’s been very challenging.”
She closed down both stores completely on March 29, but kept in close touch with her employees. About two weeks before her reopen date, she invited her staff back to work. Only 11 out of 30 employees wanted to return, even though they were given the choice of schedule and hours.
The problem? Over half of employees in the U.S. are making more on unemployment insurance right now than they made at their job. Due to a provision in the federal government’s CARES Act, they receive an additional $600 a week on top of their UI benefit.
Coincidentally, Foster set up an in-house online ordering system and signed a contract with the third-party delivery service, Grubhub, right before the coronavirus hit. Grubhub charges both customers and the restaurant itself for each item ordered.
“People were asking for [a delivery option], especially during coronavirus when people don’t want to leave their houses,” she said. “We do contactless service with our own curbside delivery, so I hope people will take advantage of that if they don’t want to pay the higher prices.”
This article appears in May 20-27, 2020.
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If employees on unemployment refuse a job offer from their previous employer with no reason they should lose unemployment!!
The US should have done what Denmark did…ie provide employers funding to keep all employees on the payroll for the duration. There would have been no need to collect UC and no need to “rehire” because they would not have been laid off.
I agree that employer funding should have been designed to keep small business employees on payroll for the duration. Also, no good can come from the government sending out checks to everyone. More effort was needed in making sure the system could handle processing the unemployment surge. To STILL have a backlog of processing claims is outrageous. Let’s get our country back to work so more businesses are not lost and more people are without jobs.
In response “About two weeks before her reopen date, she invited her staff back to work. Only 11 out of 30 employees wanted to return, even though they were given the choice of schedule and hours.
The problem? Over half of employees in the U.S. are making more on unemployment insurance right now than they made at their job. Due to a provision in the federal government’s CARES Act, they receive an additional $600 a week on top of their UI benefit”.
This implies that people are lazy and don’t want to work. This article is quite superficial and does not examine the issue of child care availability, nor the fact that some folks are trying to protect elderly parents or immune-compromised children, family, etc. and have concerns about exposure. I expect more from this reporter and the Source, rather than just perpetuating insulting stereotypes.
I know zero people that would ascribe to the statement they are “content on the livable wage provided by unemployment”. I have know doubt that low wage workers are finding it difficult to return to work when faced with the myriad of concerns such as danger to their health, unavailable childcare, a reduction in their previous income do to a reliance on tips, and the cost of health insurance. But I call total BS that you have a quote from an adult worker who said anything to the effect they are “comfortable on unemployment” with or without additional stimulus. Perhaps some employers are facing great frustration do to difficulty in rehiring but they should rethink their assumptions as to why that might be and you should print statements from the source.