RALEIGH President Joe Biden wants you to believe that there is no relationship between the extra $300 a week many are receiving in enhanced unemployment-insurance benefits and the shortage of workers now manifest in stores, restaurants, hotels and other businesses here in North Carolina and across the country. But doesnât paying lower-skilled workers more to stay on the sidelines than they could earn on the job make it more likely theyâll remain unemployed? âWe donât see much evidence for that,â the president said May 10 at the White House. Bidenâs claim isnât quite as ridiculous as it may sound. During the early months of the Great Suppression last year, when Congress jacked up unemployment-insurance benefits by $600 a week, there seems to have been a surprisingly small effect on the jobless rate â even though some two-thirds of recipients were receiving more in unemployment-insurance payments than theyâd likely have made by working.