Should Evers Protect Unemployment Benefits? – From The Editorial Board

For much of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has provided states with funds to enhance unemployment benefits by $600 per week, which they later reduced to $300 per week. Now, as the American public tries to push its way back to some version of ‘normal’ life, an age-old question has resurfaced with new context. Do unemployment benefits and other social safety nets make Americans lazy? Does it deter them from work? 

With the Republican-controlled Legislature gearing up to propose a bill that would end the enhanced unemployment benefits even before they are set to expire in September, Governor Tony Evers has a decision to make: Should he veto that bill when it comes?

The board believes that Evers should veto the Republican bill with the understanding that it will expire in September, as long as the unemployed are required to look for work while they collect the checks. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that just hours after Evers said he was likely to veto the bill, the Joint Committee for The Review Of Administrative Rules voted 6-4 to bring back the pre-pandemic job-search requirement. While Evers was frustrated over that decision, the board believes it was a move in the right direction. 

People tend to feel good when they have work. Even when many of us are aware that capitalism is at play, working and being productive gives us a sense of accomplishment. 

Although they were right to push job search requirements, Republicans haven’t proven their main attack on the enhanced benefits: That unemployed people are choosing not to go back to work so that they may continue to collect.

In fact, there is not enough evidence currently to support that conclusion at all. The board believes, at least anecdotally, that parts of the service industry (especially restaurants and small businesses) may be having trouble hiring at this moment. Republicans have a point there, but the logic doesn’t follow that the problem is unemployment benefits. 

Actually, according to a Census Bureau survey conducted last month, nearly a third of Americans on unemployment said they were still failing to cover routine expenses like food, rent and medical care. Of those with children, roughly 75% reported not having enough food for their children. 

We believe this suggests that unemployment benefits, however enhanced, are not enough for many people to get by on. Closer to home, Wisconsinites have suffered immensely just trying to get unemployment benefits. Editorial board member Destiny DeVooght waited several months while the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) determined whether or not they were eligible after being laid off from a good job at a local coffee shop. 

In order to speak to someone at the DWD, DeVooght reported having to “get in line” over the phone at least an hour before the office opened at 7 a.m.. Even then, there was no guarantee that they would be able to help. 

A press release from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce states that 1 in 4 Americans make more money on unemployment than they would have at a job, and have told The Washington Post that they will use that statistic to lobby against enhanced unemployment. Setting aside the fact that this statistic implies that the other 75% of Americans would make more at work than they do on unemployment, we believe that this is more a critique on the jobs available than it is on the workers themselves. 

The board strongly believes that no one should make more money on unemployment than they would if they were working, and recommends that more effort be put into raising wages and investing in education and training for adults that would lead to better, more secure jobs. 

The road to economic recovery was bound to be bumpy, and prematurely ending the programs that kept the state from total collapse won’t smooth it out. Wisconsin Legislators need to look forward and collaborate on systemic solutions to the root causes of unemployment, rather than this highly partisan bill to end enhanced unemployment benefits early.