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Zuma Global CEO Heather Zumaraga is studying the cost of paying Americans not to work.
Americans living in some Republican-led states may lose their unemployment benefits this week, nearly three months before the additional aid ends.
At least 25 states led by Republican governors decided in May and June to withdraw early from several pandemic relief programs, including those that provided an additional $300 a week in addition to regular state unemployment benefits and expanded eligibility for unemployment assistance. Supplemental benefits aren’t about to expire until September 6.
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Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi and Missouri will be the first to pull out, ending pandemic-era programs for jobless Americans on June 12.
Other states ending benefits early – Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming will stop giving unemployed workers an extra $300 in benefits sometime during the summer.
Nearly 16 million Americans will lose unemployment benefits as a result, according to one estimate published by the Century Foundation.
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The measures came in light of the Labor Department’s April payroll report, which revealed that the economy added just 266,000 jobs last month — sharply missing the 1 million jobs forecast by Refinitiv economists. Salary growth also lost expectations in May, raising concerns about a labor shortage and its potential impact on the tepid economic recovery from the pandemic.
GOP lawmakers were quick to blame the additional unemployment aid for meager job growth, though experts also pointed to a lack of childcare and fears of contracting COVID-19 due to a lack of employment.
There are still 7.6 million fewer jobs than in February 2020, before the pandemic began.
The average state unemployment benefit is about $330 per week. With the federal supplement, Americans receive about $630 in weekly unemployment benefits. (For comparison, that’s about $32,000 a year, or nearly twice the minimum wage in the country.)
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President Biden and Democrats have dismissed the idea that Americans are choosing to stay home and collect additional unemployment benefits — part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law passed in March — rather than go back to work.
However, Biden has confirmed that unemployment benefits will end in September as planned, despite the momentum among some members of his party to make the extra money permanent.
“It will expire in 90 days,” Biden said on Friday. “Logical.”
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