It's the classic chicken and the egg question: Did Wisconsin's job crisis come from lack of good jobs or is the problem that there simply aren't enough qualified people to fill the jobs?
Governor Scott Walker says "there are plenty of jobs," but suggests that most job applicants are hopped-up on drugs-- a dream job is within their grasp, only to lose it when they fail the drug test.
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson chimed in last week and downplayed the notion of a skills gap, saying the problem was that people would rather sit home and collect unemployment: "I think its more of a willingness to work gap." (see below)
The reality is that the vast majority of people who are unemployed, under-employed, or stuck in a low-wage job are not on drugs. And most of these people are not trying to game the system by sitting home and collecting piddly unemployment checks-- which amount to half of what you were making, up to $370 a week. In other words, if you were a worker making nine bucks an hour and got laid-off, your unemployment check would be half of your already ridiculously low wage. And even if unemployment ran forever--which of course it doesn't--nobody wants to try to live on that.
Wisconsin is having a jobs crisis because there aren't enough good jobs.
Why? Hundreds of thousands of good Wisconsin jobs have been outsourced to foreign countries due to unfair trade deals, which both Walker and Johnson support. And for the few good jobs that are left, both Walker and Johnson have done little in the form of student aid to help workers get the training required to land those jobs. Johnson, in fact, doesn't even think the government should offer student loans.
There you have it, folks: Two politicians who are not only turning a blind-eye to a crisis they helped create, but who also then have the nerve to try to blame the victims for being either too lazy or drug addled to get a job.
