Economics
GOP Governors Nix $300-a-Week Jobless Pay, Stoking Debate
- Montana, Texas among over 20 states planning to scrap benefits
- Ending aid isn’t a cure-all to labor shortages, economists say
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It started in Montana. The governor, desperate to fill record numbers of new weekly job postings, announced plans to scrap the payment of beefed-up federal unemployment benefits. Two days later, South Carolina followed. Then, in a rapid-fire rush, so too did about 20 other states, including Texas on Monday.
The governors -- all Republicans -- are inserting themselves in the middle of what has become the hottest debate surrounding the biggest economy in the world: Are the enhanced benefits, which can swell unemployed workers’ monthly checks to near or even above their pre-pandemic wages, discouraging millions of Americans from looking for jobs as Covid-19 restrictions ease?