ATLANTA – Georgia, along with a growing number of Republican-led states, is cutting federal unemployment benefits to encourage unemployed workers to get back to work.
Governor Brian Kemp said in an interview with Fox News Thursday that the Georgia Department of Labor would stop issuing weekly checks of $ 300 to unemployed workers for the next month.
The governor’s remarks came three days after a coalition of state trade associations led by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce released a statement that complaining companies cannot find workers for a growing list of job vacancies as unemployed Georgians receive more unemployed people in states and states than they could earn by returning to work.
“It affects our productivity not just in Georgia but across the country,” said Kemp. “We have to get more people into the workforce.”
Georgia Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, an auto dealer, endorsed the move.
“President Biden and the federal government have turned their backs on local business owners desperate from labor shortages by continuing to spend taxpayers’ money in the form of unnecessary unemployment benefits,” Miller said in a prepared statement.
But workers’ advocates planned Kemp’s move to end the higher benefit amount on Thursday, saying it was wrong that the extra $ 300 a month would have deterred many unemployed Georgians from looking for new jobs.
Thousands of Georgians have already returned to work since the pandemic started last year, contrary to Kemp’s claims that too many workers are still on the fringes, said Ray Khalfani, a research fellow at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (GBPI), a nonprofit. .
Even so, Khalfani stressed that many Georgians are still struggling to find new jobs or return to their old ones after the pandemic hit the job market and killed many service-oriented businesses, especially for low-income and mostly black communities in the state.
“Although some jobs are returning, it does not mean that everyone who wants to return to work can,” Khalfani said at a news conference Thursday.
Among them is Elizabeth Knight, a Savannah resident who has received unemployment benefits since her vacation as an employment specialist in November 2020. Knight said she struggled to find new jobs in her field while she also looked after her young son.
“This unemployment gives me a little time to figure out which way I’m going,” Knight said Thursday.
Not only did GBPI’s Khalfani ignore the difficulties many people had in finding new jobs, but warned Kemp’s decision to end the added benefit could drive more Georgians into poverty and depress consumer spending, partly supported by increased federal benefits.
“If you speak to the people who need time to get back into work, it will hurt many Georgians, hundreds of thousands,” said Khalfani.
The $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus bailout package, which went into effect last month, extends $ 300 weekly unemployment checks through September.
In response to complaints that controls are encouraging virus-conscious Americans not to return to work, Biden said this week that anyone who refuses to take a suitable job will lose their unemployment benefits.
At least a dozen states with Republican governors, including South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee, have moved to cut federal benefits.
Kemp said the state will stop issuing the weekly federal checks in mid-June to late June.
