“There is not a shortage of willing workers in America. There is a shortage of employers willing to pay workers a living wage with decent benefits.” huffpost.com/entry/unemploy…
Sanders says the Biden administration can save the gig worker unemployment benefits because the text of the CARES Act says the DOL secretary "shall" pay those benefits.
Either DOL makes states keep the benefits or pays itself.
No comment from DOL yet...
I must say the possibility of DOL saving PUA gig workers benefits is a big deal.
MORE people are on PUA than regular state unemployment.
Folks on state UI will lose the $300 but keep their state bennies. Those on PUA will go to zero.
The DOL has declined to comment. Joe Biden on Monday said unemployed people should go back to work.
He could save these benefits, which actually what the law requires, or he could skip the fight because it costs him political capital with Republicans.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Joe Biden doesn't wanna fight the Republican governors canceling unemployment benefits huffpost.com/entry/joe-bide…
Bernie Sanders and labor experts say text of the law actually requires the Biden admin to keep paying the gig worker benefits that states are canceling along with the extra $300.
The administration response is basically hmm okay
Weird parallel:
Congress let the extra $600 die last summer so Trump made a $300 replacement, pretty much out of thin air.
Now states are killing a $300 supplement and Biden is declining to use a probably much sounder legal power to save it.
South Carolina estimated “the maximum amount of expected losses in federal funding to the state would be between $600 and $650 million,” partially offset by as much as $372 million in wages under an optimistic projection of workers returning to jobs.
Governors could cut the extra $300 and leave the rest but they’re not doing that.
Some of the workers affected by cuts will still have state benefits but 621k will not, and that’s most.
South Carolina's canceling federal unemployment benefits early, second state to do so and I'm sure more will follow huffpost.com/entry/south-ca…
What's funny about what these states are doing is that according to our principal metric for a worker shortage -- businesses saying there's one -- canceling benefits won't help.
Even in 2019, when there were no federal benefits, SC businesses said they couldn't find workers.
Unlike Montana, South Carolina is dumping federal benefits and NOT replacing them with a "return to work bonus."
Gov McMaster calls the benefits a "dangerous federal entitlement"
NEW: nearly 30 million people are waiting on their $1,400 checks because of a holdup at the Social Security Administration, House Dems say huffpost.com/entry/social-s…
Apparently the IRS asked SSA for payment info two weeks before the Rescue Plan passed and SSA has inexplicably withheld it!
Very notable that SSA is headed by a Trump holdover some Dems already said Biden should fire
Dems already dislike SSA commissioner Andrew Saul for his agency's feuds with its workforce plus its cuts and attempted cuts to disability benefits.
If SSA is holding up checks, that's an interesting choice
People receiving disability benefits, who don’t file tax returns, still don’t know when to expect their rebate checks. IRS and Social Security haven’t offered guidance. Weird!
Last year IRS scrambled to deliver these payments without requiring people to file tax returns after initially saying they did have to file.
This is less wacky, but still frustrating for those affected.
House Dems are mad:
“we were alarmed to learn recently that most Social Security, SSI, RRB, and VA beneficiaries who are not required to file a tax return have not yet received their payments and the IRS is unable to provide an expected timeline for these payments.“