Some GOP States Swapping Unemployment Benefits For ‘Return To Work Bonuses’

Huffington Post ^ | 5/27/21 | Arthur Delaney

[Libloather]

Republican governors in four states want to give people receiving unemployment benefits a bonus payment if they return to work.

Twenty-four states have said they’ll soon cancel the extra $300 per week and other benefits Congress created to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Those include Montana, Arizona, New Hampshire and Oklahoma, where governors are now adding bonuses.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) is adding a bonus without canceling federal benefits.

Earlier this month, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) first announced the state would drop federal benefits and offer “return to work bonuses” instead. People who were receiving benefits on May 4 who subsequently take and hold jobs for four weeks will receive one-time bonuses of $1,200, the equivalent of four weeks of $300 payments.

“Our return-to-work bonus and the return to pre-pandemic unemployment programs will help get more Montanans back to work,” Gianforte said.

Montana and the other states will pay for the bonuses with funds from the American Rescue Plan, the Democratic relief bill that Republicans pilloried for what they decried as its “blue state bailout.” The bill sent checks to most households, boosted unemployment benefits and provided about $350 billion for state and local governments to mitigate the ongoing economic impact of the pandemic.

Democrats did not expect states to cancel federal unemployment benefits and then use the relief money to pay return-to-work bonuses, but Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who opposes canceling the federal benefits, said the bonuses nevertheless were a legitimate use of the funds.

[Libloather]

What about those of us who never stopped working? Oh well.

[ClearCase_guy]

Paying people to work is a pretty good idea.

But I think they’re doing it wrong.

[Starcitizen]

What about those of us who never stopped working? Oh well.
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How about those that were furloughed due to the lockdowns then replaced by H1B Indian scumbags making less that 40% of our former salary?

Or those whose entire industry was shut down for more than a year, and in many cases not yet reopened.

Yeah eff us for making the wrong career choice 35 years ago, right?????????

[Pollard]

My wife kept working at a nursing home the whole time and for months, has been getting a super sized q-tip shoved up her nostrils every week to check for covid for months.

[MachIV]

They are also now outsourcing accounting jobs to the Indians. Not much to turn to before long.

[Starcitizen]

They are also now outsourcing accounting jobs to the Indians. Not much to turn to before long.
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Some here refer to those of us permanently unemployed by H1B and other visa Indians (there are about a half-million a year brought in) as moochers, leeches and d-bags.

They say we should all just get one of the 8.1million menial labor part-time jobs in fast-food, restaurants and other low-paying industries that can’t be filled.