PJ Media

The following is a letter from a manufacturer in Illinois:

An Open Letter to the President
June 24, 2011

Dear Mr. President,
I read today that you are looking for ways to bring down unemployment. I currently employ 85 people in the USA, 8
in Mexico, 1 in China and 1 in Barbados, so I know a little bit about employing people. I would like to help you, but I
canʼt. Hereʼs why:
(1) In Illinois, at our main factory, we need to hire 11 people, but we canʼt find them. They either make too much on
unemployment, or have been conditioned by years of unemployment insurance or welfare checks to not want to
work. If they actually come to work, they canʼt make it five days in a row, or they claim oil bothers their hands, but
then the gloves we offer them for protection bother them as well. Some of them donʼt like their supervisorʼs music.
(2) I personally would hire people to help me with projects around the house, or in the yard, but if I were to employ
them for too long, I would need to withhold payroll taxes on them, get them workcomp insurance, etc.
(3) Our company would hire short term people to help with outside summer maintenance projects, but Iʼm fearful of
the workcomp lotto ticket holders and the pending $6,000 to $10,000 surcharge and the other unknowns of the
pending health care legislation (by the way, I do provide insurance for my employees).
(4) I would like to hire more elderly people (and do an excellent job already – our oldest factory worker is 81), but weʼre always nervous when we read about strange applications of ADA law – sometimes itʼs just not worth the
risk, even though weʼre willing to take the wage risk of reaching out to help people.
(5) If things slow down, we have to pay unemployment insurance claims on these short term workers. I like the
system in general, and think the concept is fair, but when someone quits, I donʼt know why they still get unemployment. Or else, if we have a layoff and we donʼt lay off according to a quota (which means white straight
men under the age of 40 all have to go first), we have to fight discrimination claims.
(6) Many of the people I could hire out in rural Illinois are being paid to live without jobs in East St Louis and downtown Chicago. I know itʼs called welfare, but itʼs robbed workers of incentive, mobility, self-worth, and a work
ethic. Itʼs not like the old days where people moved to where there were jobs.
(7) Some of them stay for only 90 days. Thereʼs something about rent eviction notices – I donʼt really understand it -
but they have to switch houses (and thus communities) every 90 days so they donʼt have to pay their rent.
This causes their kids to switch schools every 90 days as well, so they end up having to stay home from work
because of the family problems this causes.
(8) I support safe workplaces, a clean environment, retirement plans, health insurance, and a system for
compensating injured employees, but there seems to be so many lawyers and government bureaucrats behind
each issue, even the small issues, to the extent that itʼs cheaper to lose (and settle), than to fight and win, that Ihave to go very slow in hiring. Iʼ
m very loyal to people once weʼve hired them, but we have to sort thru 10 to find
1. During the recession, we paid our employees to plant trees with a shovel instead of laying them off. I thought it
would have been a neat idea for the government to do with all the
shovel ready
talk – hire people to plant trees,
help the environment – but I didnʼt hear about that happening anywhere but here (2 people can manually plant 400 trees a day, by the way).
(9) We have some jobs, short term, that we would hire people for, but we donʼt always know when weʼre talking to
them if they were born in this country. Apparently, where you were born effects which jobs you can have – like
yours, Mr. President. I thought my taxes went to protect and seal our border, but it leaks, so Iʼve been
forced into a posse to enforce the government laws in order to verify that someone who works for me is legal to work in the
USA. I guess I wouldnʼt mind doing that short term, but the police, who work for the government, canʼt do that in
some states if someone is breaking the law. Perhaps they should just stop and check people who have jobs.
I’m not sure what else to say, Mr. President. Iʼd like to help, but sometimes itʼs just easier to raise my prices,
contribute to the growing inflation rate, and look for things that I can just import and resell. I love this country, though,
and Iʼll do what I can.