Unemployed Americans may be more willing to pull back from their reliance on benefits and go back to work if they're offered a bonus, Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee said Thursday.
“We think that those unemployment benefits can be turned into a return to work bonus,” the Texas Republican said on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria."
Under Brady's plan, an unemployed worker who gets an offer for a job would be able to keep up to two weeks' worth of the new bolstered unemployment payments, or up to $1,200. Recent coronavirus stimulation funding has allowed an additional $600 weekly in benefits.
"It is unhealthy for workers to stay unemployed for a long time," Brady said, as they, their families, and the economy suffer.
He also said people should also not be getting paid more through unemployment benefits than they would earn while being on the job, as that would be a "recipe for an extended recession."
He added that it is key to make sure that temporary job losses don't turn into permanent ones, and congress should focus on that.
"While I follow the same elements that created the Trump economic boom, keeping taxes low, incentivizing businesses, making sure that pays of for workers," said Brady. "One way we can do this is to help businesses rebuild the workforce quickly. Right now, the federal unemployment benefit that came out of the CARES Act was too generous in some regions and some states in the sense that it paid more to not work than to go back to work. We are already seeing businesses struggling to bring their workers back as states reopen. If we don't solve that problem it will lead to an extended recession, certainly slow down our recovery."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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