That is not how unemployment works.
1. The Great Resignation involved people voluntarily their jobs. These people are not eligible for unemployment benefits, which are solely for laid off workers.
2. Unemployment insurance is paid by your former employer, not taxpayer dollars.
3. You don’t get the same money, or close to it. You get a percentage of an account paid by your former employer. If you collect for too long, the amount you receive drops. Eventually it runs out and you are no longer eligible and have to apply for an extension.
4. The Fed does print new money and debate the dollar, but not for reasons related to unemployment but rather to pay off foreign loans and debts.
The inflation was caused indirectly by COVID.
Money follows the same laws of supply and demand as everything else, as bkz indicated.
The stimulus checks sent to everyone by the Trump administration and later by the Biden administration created the surplus of money in circulation which in turn devalued the dollar. It’s a smaller scale of the hyperinflation that happened in Venezuela when Chavez’ successor Maduro tried to combat a tanking economy by printing more and more money (against all the advice he allegedly received).
Couple these stimulus checks - which were necessary for a lot of people and absolutely the right move - with other factors like raising minimum wage and the inflation was inevitable.
(Please feel free to correct my extremely basic knowledge of macroeconomics, anybody.)
You are likely quite right about much that you have said. I certainly am no economist. I certainly have common sense questions which likely aren't going to be answered here: How has each individual state used the covid money that they received? Do any states still have some of that money remaining? Billions of dollars were used fraudulently. What is up with that? I'm hopeful that much of the covid money went to truly needy people. I do not think that I am in the minority when I say that I saw a great just distributed indescrminantly to people that absolutely didn't need nor did they want it. Kind of a political statement that I apologize for making.
Oh I’m no economist either.
So before we go down a political corruption rabbit hole where sides he chosen (“The Republicrats are all evil and corrupt!! Not like the Democans!!”), let’s swing back to unemployment.
It’s not tax money. Unemployment insurance is paid by a (former) employer to the government to hold for layoffs. It’s essentially your money the government is holding for you.
One of the real issues COVID crated was a re-evaluation in lifestyles. Once some people learned the set could work from home, the next logical step was - home Durant need to be anywhere near work. The most common migration in 2020 was people moving from NYC to Boise, Idaho where they could keep their NYC salaries combined with a Boise cost of living. This also contributed to many 2 income families becoming one income families…
I think the biggest thing to impart to all of the younger folk is to know your worth. If you have a unique skillset that can be used to freelance, do so on the side. Always good to have multiple streams of income should one go away. It would allow you to weather any storm
Hal sucks
Long term, the market is a good investment. We can all cherry pick info to support a point. Heck, we had a lost decade in the early 2000s followed by a tripling of the dow and S and P.
Hal sucks