- The White House wants to end the weekly $ 600 unemployment checks Americans have received during the pandemic and replace them with payments of up to 70% of a worker’s previous salary.
- But the National Association of State Workforce Agencies warned Congress that it would take 8-20 weeks to transition to this more complex system, according to a memo obtained by NPR.
- The Trump Labor Department said in May that it was “strongly” opposed to unemployment based on past wages because it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement.”
- Democrats are pushing to extend unemployment benefits to $ 600, arguing that reducing or delaying high cash aid will have devastating effects on individuals and the economy as a whole.
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The White House announced last week that it wants to end the weekly $ 600 unemployment checks Americans have received during the pandemic and replace them with payments of up to 70% of a worker’s previous salary.
But the National Association of State Workforce Agencies warned Congress that it would take most states 8-20 weeks to transition to this more complex method of calculating people’s benefits, according to a memorandum obtained by NPR.
Under the system proposed by President Donald Trump, the average weekly federal unemployment for Americans would drop to around $ 200.
State unemployment systems have already struggled to meet the demand of the approximately 30 million Americans currently unemployed, in part because of outdated technology. Authorities say that switching to a system based on partial wage reimbursement would involve a more complicated and slower process of collecting information on the previous wages of each unemployed person.
The Trump Department of Labor told Congress in May that it was “strongly” opposed to unemployment based on previous wages because it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement.”
Republicans have warned for months that the $ 600 unemployment payments, which were passed in March under the CARES Act and are due next week, will discourage many Americans from going back to work. But prominent economists who have studied the subject in recent weeks say there is no significant evidence that high profits are discouraging workers from getting new jobs. Economists also say reducing unemployment could mean creating millions of fewer jobs in the coming year.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows insisted last week that technological problems will not prevent the timely delivery of unemployment in the future.
Democrats are pushing to extend unemployment benefits to $ 600 and argue that reducing or delaying high cash aid will have devastating effects on Americans and the economy.
“With their outdated technology, it would take weeks for states to implement any changes to the $ 600 increase,” Senator Ron Wyden, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, said last week. “This would cause a significant disruption. The only option that ensures families can pay the August rent is to extend the $ 600.”
