Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue has slammed the federal government for coming in as a “competitor” to private companies by “incentivizing” workers to quit their jobs.
During his interview with Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney, Unanue said his company is going through “an unfair disadvantage with the federal government from one year into the next.”
“Last year with coronavirus, we were a capitalist society and working,” he said. “When the government stepped in and then printed money and gave it out and told people, you don’t have to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.”
In addition to lowering the availability of workers, government stimulus also made inflation worse and contributed to the supply chain problem. Unanue said that Goya’s wages have gone up by 70%, while the costs of shipping some items has gone up more than tenfold.
“We are going into hard times,” Unanue said. “We are destroying this country. We are getting soft. We have the government as our top competitor. Government must get out of the way and allow us to work.”
In previous statements to Fox Business, Unanue stressed the harm of inflation on Goya’s business. The executive said that “inflation is staying at least for some time and everybody has these costs.”
After the spread of COVID-19 and the national lockdowns and resulting recession, the federal government has used trillions to stimulate the economy — including checks and greater unemployment payouts. American voters are now signaling a willingness to get additional COVID-19 stimulus checks — with one petition asking for $2,000 monthly handouts getting almost three million signatures. A January survey showed that 78% of Americans — including 90% of Dems and 64% of GOP members — approved of the $1,400 checks supported by President Joe Biden at the start of his administration.
A recent analysis from GOP members on the Joint Economic Committee says that a significant amount of the young men who get welfare from the federal government are “voluntarily disconnected” from work.
“Only 12 percent of prime-age, inactive able-bodied men said they would like a job or were open to work,” the report said. “Among men who are inactive not due to disability, retirement, education, or homemaking, 41 percent personally got government assistance.”
Author: Blake Ambrose
