USA Today recently reported that Oklahoma will pay people $1,200 to get off unemployment benefits and start working.

The state’s governor, Kevin Stitt, recently signed an executive order creating the Return to Work Incentive, which incentivizes finding a job instead of continuing to claim unemployment benefits, USA Today tells us.

According to the governor’s media office, the first 20,000 Oklahomans receiving unemployment benefits who return to the workforce will receive a $1,200 incentive using funds from the American Rescue Plan. All federal benefits will end June 26, 2021, giving Oklahomans six weeks’ notice of termination.

Is this necessary? Do people have to be bribed to go back to work?

Or is something else wrong?

“Since our state has been open for business since last June, the biggest challenge facing Oklahoma businesses today is not reopening, it’s finding employees,” Stitt said in a statement. “For Oklahoma to become a Top Ten state, workforce participation must be at a top level and I am committed to doing what I can to help Oklahomans get off the sidelines and into the workforce.”

Is this what we have sunk to? Bribing people to return to work?

Whatever happened to doing the right thing, and working hard to find a job without depending on handouts?

We know about “incentivize.” There’s a fine line between that and outright bribery.

How about tax breaks, instead, for those who want to return to work? How about tax breaks for businesses that want to hire them?

Layoffs and lockdowns, combined with enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus checks, gave many Americans the time and the financial cushion to rethink their careers. Their former employers are hiring again — and some, such as Uber and McDonald’s, are offering higher pay — but workers remain hesitant.

In March, U.S. job openings rose 8% to a record 8.1 million, but overall hiring rose less than 4%, according to government data.

The private sector is doing its job trying to recruit members. Many retailers and manufacturers are raising their wages.

However, restaurants — many of them offering $15 an hour in the county — can only charge so much before they can no longer operate with any kind of profit.

While Bank of America made news early this week that it would raise its minimum hourly wage to $25 and insist that contractors pay at least $15 an hour, many Butler County businesses cannot afford that, with much smaller margins than corporate banks.

Businesses need better incentives that will help them fill a labor shortage that exists in different parts of the county. Some sectors — until COVID-19 and its economic effects pass into the sunset — still require help. Why not improve tax breaks that can free up money for better working wages?

— AA