Restaurant owner wants unemployment benefits cut -- and complains job applicants keep asking how much he'll pay them

A restaurant owner in Las Vegas told a local newspaper last week that he's tired of having prospective workers ask him how much they'll be making if they take a job with him.

In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Steven Kim, director of operations at the Island Sushi & Grill in the South Point Hotel Casino, complained that workers are no longer willing to take jobs at his restaurant because they are making money from enhanced unemployment benefits.

"'How much do you pay?' that's one of the first questions out of their mouth," he said. "When they opened the economy, they should have decreased the amount of unemployment."

Gino Ferraro, who owns Ferraro's Italian Restaurant and Wine Bar, similarly told the Review-Journal that a major problem he's encountering right now is "everybody wants more money... no matter what position you hire for in the restaurant."

Nonetheless, Ferraro said he's "hoping things get better soon," and pointed to the impending expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits in September as a reason for optimism.