Sen. Rob Portman on Wednesday urged Congress to come to an agreement on the federal unemployment insurance supplement, telling CNBC that a solution needs to be in place this week.
“If we do nothing because we end up in a partisan gridlock here and both sides go to their corners, the people who get hurt are the workers because the $600 will end,” the Ohio Republican said on “Squawk Box.” “There’s a cliff, and we can’t let that happen so we need to do something before Friday.”
In their roughly $1 trillion coronavirus relief plan released Monday, Senate Republicans proposed a reduced benefit of $200 a week through September. The GOP plan then proposes to replace it with a different formula that would cap total state and federal unemployment benefits at 70% of lost wages.
The $600-per-week boost — on top of state-level benefits — is technically on the books until Friday. But because of a technicality with unemployment programs, states have stopped paying it out to the millions of Americans receiving jobless benefits.
Republicans contend the $600 weekly benefit, which was instituted as part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed in March, can act as a deterrent for some workers to return to the job because they might make more on unemployment insurance than before the pandemic.
Democrats in Washington want to extend the $600 benefit at least into next year, arguing the assistance is still necessary to help laid-off workers weather perhaps the worst economic crisis in the U.S. since the Great Depression.
Portman’s comments Wednesday came shortly after a new CNBC/Change Research poll of voters in six swing states found that 62% of respondents were in favor of extending the $600-per-week federal unemployment insurance.
Portman, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said he felt “very strongly” about the need for congressional action this week on the unemployment enhancement
“We cannot allow us to go through a period where there is no employment insurance going out to people. Six hundred dollars to zero is not a good option,” Portman said. “But again, there are practical solutions here.”
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/29/sen-rob-portman-congress-must-act-on-unemployment-benefit-by-friday.html