This is an important question. The pandemic response added both extensions to unemployment and additional payout beyond the typical maximum ($300/week extra, if I remember correctly). If you were laid off any time over the last 18 months, you would be making well over minimum wage by doing nothing. That's a pretty big incentive for plenty of people.

But if that were the case I'd expect to see the employment numbers dramatically shift in states that removed their unemployment assistance earlier than others, which I don't think we've seen any evidence of yet.

So far the evidence is that job growth is worse in those states.

https://www.reuters.com/business/amid-covid-surge-states-tha...

Has it been quite a month yet? If there is an effect I'd guess we won't even see it in the statistics yet, and that's without accounting for the fact that it takes time to find and start a job even in a favorable market.

If you received maximum benefits and the extra $300, then you got more than you would have earned on minimum wage. You'll receive however maximum benefit only if you earned fairly well before. So I don't see anyone getting more benefits than they could plausibly earn, if the jobs they held before were still available to them. Last year, for a time, $600 were paid in addition to unemployment benefit, which changed that equation.

> That's a pretty big incentive for plenty of people.

If $300 a week (before taxes) is a "big incentive" for people, they were being criminally underpaid before they lost their job.

Ah okay, that's the difference. No I didn't.