Free Republic

There are approximately 1.2 unfilled job openings for every unemployed American.. Should unemployment welfare pay more than your typical job? Those familiar with the basic economics of how incentives work would say no. So would anyone with moral objections to taking wealth from others to finance others’ idleness. But with the federal supplement to unemployment benefits set to finally end on Sept. 6, some progressives are raising the alarm. For context, the program in question is a federal expansion of pre-existing state-level unemployment benefits. The expansion was originally passed at the height of the pandemic, in March of 2020. The...

An Oklahoma County judge granted a preliminary injunction filed against Gov. Kevin Stitt, ordering him to reinstate the extension on the weekly $300 CARES Act federal unemployment benefits that he ended. Oklahoma County District Judge Anthony Bonner Jr. made the decision Friday in response to a lawsuit filed by Oklahomans against the state for ending the federal unemployment benefits early. Brendan McHugh, co-council for the petitioners, argued that some 74,000 Oklahomans are still relying on the extra $300 a week. Stitt said in May the added federal benefits were disincentivizing people from working. He announced federal benefits would end three...

More than 2.9 million Americans are still on traditional state unemployment benefits as the number of people seeking weekly new claims appear to have settled at a level higher than previously hoped, the feds said Thursday. Continuing claims fell by 366,000 from just over 3.26 million the week before, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department. That figure stood at almost 16 million at the same time last year, in the thick of the pandemic. Continuing claims have fallen significantly since peaks seen in 2020, but the figure remains about twice as high as pre-pandemic levels.

About 1.8 million out-of-work Americans have turned down jobs because of the generosity of unemployment insurance benefits, according to Morning Consult poll results released Wednesday. Why it matters: U.S. businesses have been wrestling with labor supply shortages as folks capable of working have opted not to work for a variety of reasons. One of the more politically controversial reasons has been the availability of unemployment insurance benefits, in particular emergency provisions that were introduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, 26 states opted to cut emergency benefits early with the intention of incentivizing people to take open jobs. By the...

Lockdown proponents across the media are smugly patting themselves on the back, proclaiming that stay-at-home policies didn’t harm the economy. Try telling that to the millions of small-business owners who were irreparably damaged by prolonged and irrational restrictions. With many big corporations deemed “essential,” ... small businesses struggle to survive. Nearly two-thirds of them are hitting only half or less of their pre-lockdown monthly revenue levels, ... Then there are the businesses that never recovered at all. ... Small business forms the US economy’s backbone, accounting for more than 99 percent of all business entities, and before 2020, around half...

In the face of growing labor shortages, 25 states are ending federal pandemic unemployment benefits in the coming weeks. Their Republican governors argue those benefits make unemployment pay better than working, keeping workers on the sidelines of the economy. But the staggered expiration of benefits in those states over the next four weeks is just a foreshadowing of the far larger benefits cliff ahead on Labor Day. That’s when federal benefits for as many as nine million recipients will abruptly end, marking the largest benefits cliff in American history. The cliff will result directly from Democrats’ March 2021 American Rescue...

Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say. Why it matters: Unemployment fraud during the pandemic could easily reach $400 billion, according to some estimates, and the bulk of the money likely ended in the hands of foreign crime syndicates — making this not just theft, but a matter of national security. Catch up quick: When the pandemic hit, states weren't prepared for the unprecedented wave of unemployment claims they were about to face. They all knew fraud was inevitable, but decided getting...

California may have sent out $10 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits, with some of the funds even going to organized crime organizations in China and Russia. California hired Blake Hall’s ID.me to investigate fraud in October, and he said that at least 10% of unemployment claims before that month were fraudulent. Hall puts the amount of fraud sent out at around $9.8 billion, from March to September 2020. Hall added in his interview with the Los Angeles Times that a good amount of the fraud is due to organized crime gangs in foreign countries. "When the Russians and the Nigerians...

What is happening with unemployment benefits today? As part of the American Rescue Plan of 2021, the federal government authorized an extra $300 a week in jobless aid and extended pandemic unemployment assistance for the self-employed, with an expiration date of Sept. 6. However, governors in 24 states have pledged to cancel their participation in these programs early, leaving millions of struggling Americans in the lurch this summer. As the economy begins to recover from the pandemic, there are plenty of cries to hold on to that supplemental assistance. But the Department of Labor said the federal government won't intervene...

Mayor Bill de Blasio admitted Thursday that the Biden administration’s generous jobless benefits are hindering the return of employees to work as businesses try to reopen from COVID-19 shutdowns. “I think there’s an issue there,” Hizzoner acknowledged when asked at his daily briefing how he plans to rev up the city’s economy again if workers find it more lucrative to stay home than return to work. “And I think what you’re going to see is more and more people taking jobs because the unemployment is going to run out soon,” he said.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said Tuesday the state will stop participating in multiple pandemic-related federal unemployment benefit programs because of a workforce shortage. “Effective June 12, 2021, the State of Iowa will end its participation in federal pandemic-related unemployment benefit programs. Iowa will continue to provide regular state unemployment insurance benefits to those eligible under the applicable state code,” she said in a press release, according to KCCI.

GOP Governors Slash Unemployment Benefits as Businesses Plead for Workers By Updated: May 10, 2021 biggersmaller Print Expanded federal unemployment benefits that were implemented during last year’s pandemic relief efforts are ending earlier than scheduled in Arkansas, Montana, and South Carolina—and Florida is expected to follow suit as Republican governors nationwide respond to pleas from businesses to encourage Americans to return to work. “We absolutely can put more people to work,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told reporters during a press conference Wednesday, announcing that Floridians receiving the $300 weekly extra payments will soon have to provide proof that they’re...

Illegal aliens in New Jersey have gone on a hunger strike to lobby state lawmakers to pass a taxpayer-funded program that would provide them with potentially billions in unemployment and stimulus benefits. This month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and state Democrats struck a budget deal that includes $2.1 billion of taxpayer money for nearly 300,000 illegal aliens.

TurboTax and H&R Block updated their online software to account for a new tax break on unemployment benefits received in 2020. The American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill signed this month by President Joe Biden, waived federal tax on up to $10,200 of jobless benefits per person. State returns may still pose a problem for e-filers. TurboTax and H&R Block updated their online software to account for a new tax break on unemployment benefits received last year, according to company officials. However, state tax returns may still be a source of trouble for some taxpayers filing electronically.

A Los Angeles man indicted by a federal grand jury this month for possessing methamphetamine and unauthorized debit cards is suspected of using the identities of 23 inmates and others to obtain more than $3 million in state unemployment benefits, according to court records. Edward Kim, 35, allegedly submitted at least 400 fraudulent claims with the California Economic Development Department from March 30 to Sept. 8, 2020, according to an arrest affidavit filed by U.S. Department of Labor Special Agent Anthony Clark. At least 120 of those EDD claims were filed under the names of inmates incarcerated in California prisons,...

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a Marine Corps veteran, last week called on Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough to withdraw benefits from active-duty service members, veterans, or military retirees who participated in the deadly January 6 Capitol riot. "The behavior of these individuals is not representative of the large population of American veterans, the vast majority of whom served honorably and are appalled by the thought of insurrection in the country they served," he wrote in a letter. "Yet, many of the veterans and service members who attacked their own government actively and enthusiastically enjoy benefits not available to...

WASHINGTON, DC, Feb 12 – “We’re not giving up on our efforts to eliminate the unfair income tax on Social Security benefits. The Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act is being reintroduced and the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC] will be doing what it takes to encourage lawmakers to support the measure,” says Bob Carlstrom, president of AMAC Action, the association’s senior advocacy affiliate. The original Social Security and tier 1 railroad retirement benefits were specifically exempted from income taxes when they were created in the mid 1930s. “After all, workers pay for them with taxes that are taken out...

President Joe Biden is calling on the Department of Labor to make this clear: Workers are entitled to refuse employment that jeopardizes their health, without sacrificing unemployment benefits. The issue is one that's played out differently state-by-state, with millions of Americans facing the choice of toiling at the front lines of a deadly pandemic or losing their ability to put food on the table.

resident Donald Trump’s current proposal for additional unemployment benefits of $300 a week just doesn’t go far enough, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Wednesday press conference. But he said he won’t “look a gift horse in the mouth” now that Trump has said states do not have to come up with another $100 a week on their own. The Democratic governor said he’s working on how California can process the $300 in the president’s proposal “as quickly and efficiently as possible.” The $600 in weekly additional federal unemployment benefits expired at the end of July, and Congress and...

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned on Tuesday that individuals who reject an offer from their company to return to work after being laid off due to coronavirus are no longer considered eligible to receive federal unemployment benefits. Mnuchin said that companies receiving benefits under the Payroll Protection Program who are inviting employees who had been laid off or furloughed due to the coronavirus crisis to return to work should plan to notify state unemployment offices of their offers. If the employee, in turn, turns down the job, they would then be considered ineligible to receive expanded unemployment benefits.