Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture & Commerce Andrew Gipson submitted this guest column.
For over a year, supply and distribution chains in America have been adversely affected by COVID-19 and the related workforce shutdowns. Initially last spring, government mandates driven by the virus and by CDC recommendations forced many people other than those deemed “essential workers” to stay home from their jobs. For some, work could continue remotely as workers, teachers and students adapted to virtual classrooms and other technology-based methodologies. But for the bulk of the workforce and the public relying on manufactured and processed products, these shutdowns had an immediately noticeable impact in temporarily interrupting manufacturing and distribution systems across the country, and even around the world.
I
can give you one real-life example from the Mississippi State
Fairgrounds. In 2020, the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and
Commerce made the decision to
continue working during pandemic restrictions, including the completion
of the new Mississippi Trade Mart and Coliseum renovations. As the new
Trade Mart was nearing completion, the contractor was faced with major
backlogs in supplies from manufacturers across
America – manufacturers who had halted or slowed operations. The
dividing doors for the new Trade Mart being manufactured in another
state were delayed six weeks, thus delaying the entire project. But
this was only a small symptom of a much broader crisis.
International
trade halted or slowed. Manufacturing and food processing facilities
shut down or scaled back as workers were forced home. Prices increased
dramatically
due to temporary shortages in products such as ground beef, coupled
with higher demand. Lumber prices climbed exponentially as sawmills
could not keep up with demand of the home improvement sector.
Thankfully, most of these issues were only temporary as
employers and workers adapted to find ways to keep plants open during
the pandemic and eventually caught up with consumer demand. 
Commissioner Gipson
But as a lingering effect of COVID-19, I believe there remains a far greater and perhaps more significant long-term threat. Since last spring, governors across America’s 50 states have taken vastly different approaches in terms of “reopening” states as the threat of COVID-19 has dissipated. Some states such as California, New Mexico and New York have insisted on essential perpetual shutdowns of large portions of their manufacturing and economic sector. Meanwhile, states such as Mississippi, Texas and Florida have successfully reopened nearly completely, and employers are hiring. The problem is, in both sets of states, employers are faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem: the lack of a once existing robust workforce that is willing to return to work.
People
are choosing to stay home because the federal government adopted
stimulus and unemployment policies making it more profitable for some
people NOT to work
for a lengthy period of time. Many people ask the question: “Why work
when the government will pay me to stay home?” And so, jobs are not
being filled. Factories are not operating at capacity. Slaughterhouses
and food processing plants are not keeping
up with demand. In America right now, there is a shortage of pork
products – not because of COVID, but because of a shortage of workers.
The
agriculture sector has faced a shortage of skilled laborers for many
years, and this is an issue my office has been working on since 2019.
But the issue now
is much broader and impacts all of us. Try to purchase a piece of
manufactured equipment right now or parts to make a repair; chances are
that delivery is severely delayed. There is a shortage of cashiers in
grocery stores and other retail outlets, causing
long lines and extreme wait times. Restaurants cannot serve at full
capacity due to a shortage of staff. Cattle producers are experiencing
delays in having livestock processed for consumption because there is a
waitlist at the processor due to high demand
and fewer workers.
If
Americans in all 50 states are not soon motivated to return to work,
and if the incentives NOT to work are not removed, we could see the
temporary shortages of
the COVID Spring of 2020 repeat themselves in construction,
manufacturing and transportation, as well as food production, processing
and distribution at grocery stores, restaurants and ultimately, at our
dinner tables.
20 comments:
Pay up or shut down.
AMEN
These agricultural based businesses wont pay a wage that a citizen needs in order to pay a mortgage. So they will just import third worlders who will gladly live 12 to a trailer and get pregnant and qualify for EBT. And then they can claim as many relatives as dependents (the IRS lets workers from Mexico and Canada claim dependents back home) and get HUGE tax returns.
Why would a person want to go work their butts off just to have uncle sam rape them with taxes to give benefits to immigrants and lazy urbanites? Not this one. Keep those covid checks coming! If they can print money to buy nuclear submarines and stealth fighters then they can print money for me!
Someone tell this clown to stay in his lane. Leave office and run for governor if you think you have a shot.
These agricultural based businesses wont pay a wage that a citizen needs in order to pay a mortgage.
Hell, why stop moving the goalposts at merely a mortgage?
Not much has changed since Edward R Murrow documented the situation 60 years ago
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffhp&q=harvest+of+shame+doc&atb=v192-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DyJTVF_dya7E
Very few seemed to be ashamed then and few are ashamed today.
@10:11
You are absolutely correct. No one should earn a living wage unless they are an Ole Miss or MSU alumni! Debt slavery is all that the plebs deserve and they shall have it!
I was hoping he'd address last week's melee at the mudbug fest. To keep up with Lynn, he needs a red cowboy hat.
Betcha in say, about another year or two, the contraction of workers (due to media perpetuated Covid fear and desperate financial "stimulus" that has run its course) we will likely see a nationwide economic contraction (i.e. crash) that will make the 1930s look like gravy days.
America is spoiled lazy, and has lost its grit. War will be on the horizon soon after. Over half the damn country wants to be taken care of, and not have to think for themselves. Law enforcement heroes will resign en masse......So bread and circuses here we come - everyone is equal alright, equally miserable. Election integrity is the only thing that can save America. Good morning to everybody!
eh...so we don’t need immigrants who are willing to work in slaughterhouses, meat processing, farming?
they are the only ones who will DO that work. why no shoe factories here? people don’t want to work that job.
when an unemployment check is more than a wage, it’s not a governmental problem but a private sector business one.
the only places that are having a tough time right now are the ones that don’t pay. costco, walmart are doing just fine but the “minimum wage” job can’t even find a teenager..
The only thing that really matters to the US economy is that the US Gov can cultivate enough taxable income through deficit spending to service the interest on the national debt. They accomplish this by spending on defense, agriculture, business services, etc. Only ignorant people hot upset when President Obama stated that Government creates and sustains the US economy. Government contracts make people millionaires and billionaires.
Have a manufacturer in the delta that is offering starting salary of $15/hr, first day full benefits with 401k. Employee has option to work on Saturday for time and 1/2 and on Sunday double time. They cannot find any new employees. You can certainly pay your bills with that kind of money.
Farm workers, like teachers, don't work a full year most of the time. Both sit out about 3 months.
All this shit was started by this Government over a cold. Some day we may, I say May, learn.
Jim Buck Gipson is correct. If you just simply eat out, restaurants run out of food, grocery stores can't get the Purina Beneficial brands. I believe all the benes run out in September. We'll hanfg on until then.
Import the third world, become the third world. In 1965 this country was less than 1% hispanic.
Now it's almost 20% hispanic and 70% of them vote democrat.
Hope the cheap labor is worth it for your children are living in a socialist hellhole
Throw the “not high enough wages” into the ever growing excuse pile that lazy people use to validate free guvment money. We go over wages at the interview, but most of the unemployed won’t even (keep their word) and show up for an interview. If they do show up, they have zero skills, not to mention, how to be just somewhat professional.
The day this country lets lazy people direct its future is the day we won’t have a future.
Name three places of bidness that pay minimum wage. It's a myth.
The predictable response from one of the socialists who comment here is normal for them - it's the lack of a "living wage". There have always been poor people at the bottom of the rung. There always will be. The "poor" in this country are richer than the poor anywhere else. The actual poor across the world are trying to find their next meal and live in tin or cardboard shacks. Our poor have cell phones, cars, microwaves, TVs, eat junk food, and are obese and smoke cigarettes. Obviously that is a blanket statement and doesn't apply to all the poor. It's tough to make it on $15/hour, no doubt. The problem is that expectations are too high. Equality is a myth. There will always be an underclass unable or unwilling to advance beyond poverty. A man most people in Mississippi worship as God said 2000 years ago, "the poor you have with you always", and "having food and raiment, therewith be content".
Take away the "stimulus" money, extra unemployment, all the benefits, and people would work or starve. This would fix the labor shortage problem. People astound me who think all the free money doesn't result in people not working. These are people who can't think past Friday. If you have ever worked with these kind of people you know what I mean. There are people who won't show up on Friday if you pay yen on Thursday. They come back to work on Monday because they spent all their money over the weekend. Yes, the free money is the problem.
I said to some friends something very similar to you (but less eloquently) 7:00am.
I suggested that I sympathize sincerely with the plight of minimum wage workers, but that a "living wage" is not supposed to include the same car that a professional is able to afford.
I am not opposed to all suggestions to increase minimum wage, but working hard and moving up the ladder should always be the goal and the path to more money.
I think many young people want the same things Mom and Dad have and they want it the day they graduate college.
I did not own a home until I was 30 and it was a very small starter home.
I drove very used cars and was one of the last young people (way back when) that could afford a cell phone.
And honestly I blame parents for the youth and their unrealistic need for immediate gratification.
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