WASHINGTON: A handful of US states announced they will end extra unemployment benefits provided by the federal government, which they say is hindering companies from hiring workers.
Alabama and Mississippi have joined Arkansas, Montana and South Carolina in cutting off the payments that provided $300 a week on top of regular state benefits through early September.
The moves in the Republican-led states came after a disappointing employment report for April released Friday showed the US economy recovered just 266,000 positions last month.
The data show the economy still has not recovered 8.2 million of the 22 million jobs lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some employers and the US Chamber of Commerce blame the sluggish hiring in part on the generous jobless benefits.
"It has become clear to me that we cannot have a full economic recovery until we get the thousands of available jobs in our state filled," Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said on Twitter.
He said he had spoken to many small business owners and found the special programs "that may have been necessary in May of last year are no longer so in May of this year." But President Joe Biden pushed back against the argument that the extra payments - funded by the $1.9 trillion rescue package Congress approved in March - mean "people are being paid to stay home rather than go to work." "We don't see much evidence of that," Biden told reporters. "Americans want to work."
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