Businesses around the country are complaining of difficulty finding people to hire. Many employers blame generous unemployment insurance payments that may give some would-be workers incentive to stay home.
Some recipients still earn more on unemployment than they do when they’re working, thanks to the $300 supplement. And under current law, those benefits will remain in place until Sept. 6 no matter how much the economy might boom or how abundant jobs turn out to be.
In a proposed sweeping overhaul of the system published this month by Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the duration of jobless benefits would vary based on the unemployment rate. States with a jobless rate under 5 percent would extend benefits for 26 weeks, and those with 10 percent unemployment for 98 weeks. He would also raise benefits by $100 a week when the jobless rate was above 6 percent, and by $200 when it was above 8 percent.
Some lawmakers are thinking similarly. Two Democrats, Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Michael Bennet of Colorado, proposed legislation this month that would, among many other things, extend benefits when the unemployment rate is at or above 5.5 percent.
Similar proposals have failed to advance for a range of reasons. For one, the plans appear expensive in the conventions of budget math. The current practice is to extend benefits in a bill, or a series of them, if the need arises. That appears less expensive than building in money in advance for jobless benefits and automatic triggers based on the economy.
Now consider the partisanship that can come into play in limiting the size of recession aid packages. If lawmakers agree to spend only $900 billion on economic help, for example, it’s a disadvantage if some of that is devoted to a theoretical estimate of what jobless benefits might be years in the future.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/upshot/pandemic-unemployment-insurance.html
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