Congress Continues to Debate as Enhanced Unemployment Benefits Expire Next Week

us for more. Thanks for joining us, Eric, thanks for having me. I wanted to talk about the jobless benefits that a lot of people are getting right now. This extra six hundred dollars a week, it's set to expire at the end of the month on July. I've been seeing for administrative reasons, some states have said that the last payments will go out this weekend if the program

is not extended. I know a lot of people really saw this as a lifeline when the pandemic caused a lot of states to shut down entire industries, and we're seeing that some twenty million Americans are sets lose this extra benefit. Eric tell us anything you know about updates with this? How is Congress moving along with the plan

to either extend this or just let it expire. So Congress is trying to hash out what appears to be some sort of compromised The administration has signaled support for some type of extension, perhaps at a lower level, perhaps it phases out, which suggests there might be some ground to compromise. But the Democrats have already said they'd like the full sick hundred dollars to be extended in the next year, and other Republicans have called for it to

be added completely. So kind of remains to be seen if there'll be a middle ground. You're exactly right that, given how these payments are made on a weekly basis, there's concerned in a number of states that effectively this money and within a few days rather than a little bit more than a week from now. So there's some urgency for Congress to maybe act even sooner than the deadline. But I've been covering things in Washington long enough. Usually we have to read to exactly the deadline before we

get a compromise exactly. I've been seeing from some Republicans that they possibly would be open to extending it if it was set at a lower amount between two hundred and four hundred dollars. And one of the things they're reasoning for that is that a lot of people are actually making more money with this added unemployment benefit than they would through their normal jobs. And one of the lines of thinking is that people don't want to come

back to work because they're making more money on unemployment. Yeah, that's correct. The University of Chicago did his study and they found a little more than two thirds of those receiving unemployment benefits are receiving more income now than they did at their previous jobs. And how we got to that point is the six hundred dollars was intended to boost the average unemployment payment to the median wage for

a full time worker in the US. But what we've learned since is that the person laid off wasn't the median wage earner, much more likely to be a lower wage worker, someone that maybe works at our restaurant, a hotel somewhere in the tourism industry, and those folks often, you know, make less than the twenty three or twenty four dollars an hour that the unemployment benefits pay, so even lowering it to three or four hundred, there will

be some workers that will still be paid more. I mean, certainly if you're making the minimum wage, which still in many states, even two hundred on top of unemployment benefits could mean that you're making more money than you did before, but certainly smaller share of workers. One, there's a lot of stuff on the table. Obviously, what are we hearing about another round of stimulus checks? The last time it was individual payments to people. Are we hearing any movement

on that front. Yeah, again, the administration has signaled support for that, and that kind of brings up this debate around you know, should these payments be targeted. One way to target them is two people who lost their jobs. Another way to target them is to businesses that say they need loans or grants to continue to employee. Or you don't target and you say, you know, anyone that makes below a certain income level gets another check. Now, that puts a lot of stimulus into the economy, so

that would probably help support the economic growth. It's kind of found money, but at the same time, you know, it's not necessarily directly helping those that lost their jobs or their businesses have suffered due to the pandemic. There was a couple of interesting things I saw in one

of her latest articles talking about all of this. On the employer's side, you know, some businesses might need to raise wages to attract workers to either get them out of the you know, want to get out of unemployment, or just even I feel like it's worth their safety, you know, if they're scared about getting sick. But that's a difficult thing to do, especially right now with how

slow things are going. So, you know, we talked to for that article someone who operates a call center Kentucky, and he said, you know, he's offering fifteen dollars an hour for those jobs, just kind of actually a little involved the industry standard. And he said, you know, he can't get worker because many of the people that he would hire for this job are making something more than twenty dollars now or on unemployment benefits. So you can

understand how that would be difficult for them. You know, some economists, though, said, you know, maybe that means you need to raise your wages. Because it's a different ballgame now. People may not want to report to an office. People may not be able to because they have childcare issues, or they or someone they know is sick. The challenges and this was the business owner told me. It's like, yeah, if I raised everyone's wages, I wouldn't win any contract.

So that's kind of the argument that you can't operate your business profitably if you greatly increased wages. But you know, I do think there's probably some middle ground. A lot of discussion, and among academia at least, is that people who are considered essential workers. The idea that essential worker also is the lowest paid and therefore, apparently in economic term, the least value worker doesn't really make sense to a lot of economists. Ups and then I think that businesses

will have to be examine. The last thing I wanted to ask is because there's just some interesting notes in it about which states would be the most affected by these extra benefits expiring. Nevada would be the worst state affected. They have the highest share of workers who are getting these enhanced benefits. Nevada's economy has really been decimated by a coronavirus because so much of it is tied to

Las Vegas tourism. The vast majority people that live in Nevada live in the Las Vegas area, and most are within one or two degrees to the casino and entertainment industry. So you know, even people like doctors and accountants, you know, they are getting their business by helping people who work at these hotels and casino So that area has been really hard hit, and you know some of them have

been allowed to reopen. But destinations the Hawaiian another place they're really seeing their economy hit, whereas some places like the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, now they're doing a little bit better because they're getting people who don't want to fly to Hawaii and maybe they're willing to drive from New York to Tennessee, for example. The conversation continues to see what's going to happen with these extra benefits. I can't imagine Congress not doing something, but what form it

will take is going to be the big question. Eric Morath, Labor economics and policy reporter at The Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Sure, I'm happy to join you as always. I'm Oscar Ramirez, and this has been reopening America. Don't forget there today's big news stories. You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast. Every Monday to Friday, so follow us in my heart radio or wherever you get your podcast