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Small business owners believe unemployment benefits may be negatively affecting their businesses

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Since the pandemic began last March, millions of Georgians have received unemployment benefits, but now some small business owners say too much of a good thing is hurting them.

At Rock N’ Taco in Roswell, co-owner John Michael Burnetti told Channel 2′s Mike Petchenik business has resumed booming.

“We’re starting to see an influx of people,” he said.

But Burnetti said it’s putting a strain on his already overworked staff.

“We’ve got an unbelievable crew here, but if they’re working every shift, every day, they’re going to get burned out,” he said. “That’s my biggest fear.”

Burnetti is advertising for nearly a dozen positions at his restaurant, but he said nobody is applying.

“It doesn’t matter what we offer to pay, people just don’t want to work right now,” he said.

Up the street at 1920 Tavern, owner Jenna Aronowitz told Petchenik she’s having a similar problem.

“It’s really picking up. People are coming out and it’s getting busier and busier, but to find people is not happening,” she said. “We used to get 10 applications a day. We’re lucky if we get anything a month.”

Both Burnetti and Aronwitz blame what they believe are bloated unemployment benefits.

“If you earn a $1,000 a week … you’ll be OK with $750 staying at home, rather than getting $1,000 and coming to work,” said Aronowitz.

Burnetti said he’s hearing from his employees that their friends are content drawing benefits instead of taking the jobs.

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“We want to hire people, but why would someone want to work for their money when they can sit at home and make more money doing nothing?”

Petchenik questioned Georgia’s Labor Commissioner, Mark Butler, about the concerns, and Butler said he’s hearing similar complaints from employers across the state.

“It’s not just restaurants we’re hearing from their complaint about this,” he said. “It’s pretty much everybody.”

Butler said an unemployed Georgian getting the maximum state benefit as well as a federal subsidy could be making as much as $16 per hour to stay home.

“There are literally hundreds of thousands of jobs sitting out in Georgia right now that are going unfilled, and employers are telling me that they just cannot compete against some of the rich benefits right now,” Butler said.

This week, Butler said there were more than 300,000 open jobs posted to the labor department’s web site, which he said is a record.

“The economy is actually much better now than it was back in November,” said Butler. “We have a record number of jobs right now in Georgia.”

Butler blames changes at the federal level that have made it easier than ever for someone to apply and receive benefits. His office also said the state has waived a requirement that people be actively looking for jobs while drawing unemployment.

“They want us to apply a whole list of new reasons how somebody can now qualify for unemployment,” he said. “And some of these, basically, you could pretty much just say, ‘I don’t want to work’ almost and get it.”

Petchenik emailed a White House spokesman and spokespeople for U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, supporters of recent stimulus packages, to ask about the apparent unintended consequences of bolstered benefits, but as of Friday afternoon, he had not heard back from them.

“You’re going to end up putting a lot of people out of business because they can’t find workers and they can’t provide services,” Butler said.