Voters Support Replacing 100 Percent Of Workers’ Wages During This Crisis
By Senator Ron Wyden
One of Democrats’ top priorities in the coronavirus relief package was supercharging unemployment insurance benefits. Our country is facing an unprecedented economic crisis, and the most significant expansion of unemployment insurance in history is vital to both slow the spread of the virus and help the more 22 million Americans who have lost their jobs keep food on the table.
Unemployment insurance was created in 1932, when no one could have imagined how the nature of work would change over the next century. Freelancers and gig workers and are excluded from traditional unemployment insurance benefits.
A key part of the expansion Democrats secured in the CARES Act fills those gaps so that those who are self-employed, as well as those who are left without child care, are covered for the first time.
In addition to covering more workers, the expansion extended and increased benefits. Workers will receive up to 39 weeks of benefits instead of 26, as well as an additional $600 per week until the end of July.
The $600 plus-up brings the average unemployment benefit on par with the average wage. Instead of receiving an average of $370 per week, unemployed workers now receive an average of $970 per week.
So for many people, unemployment insurance will now replace every dollar of their lost wages. This is crucial during this public health crisis,, when workers should be social distancing in their homes, rather than out looking for a job.
Republicans and conservative commentators are concerned by the prospect that unemployment benefits, which typically replace less than half of weekly wages, are now enough to live on.
And they would also like you to believe that ensuring workers and their families do not go hungry in a pandemic is somehow controversial with the American people.
Guess what? It’s not.
Data for Progress polling shows that 78 percent of Americans, including 76 percent of Republicans, support replacing 100 percent of workers’ wages during this crisis. Support across all demographic groups was strong: 83 percent of college graduates, 75 percent of high school graduates, 74 percent of African-Americans, 77 percent of Hispanic, and 80 percent of white respondents were strongly or somewhat supportive of the $600 weekly boost.
In sum, there is overwhelming support for a stronger safety net in the midst of a pandemic.
Democrats should push for policies in the next coronavirus relief package to prevent Leader Mitch McConnell from inflicting unnecessary economic pain on American workers and sabotaging an economic recovery if President Trump loses the 2020 election.
The Congressional Budget Office projected last Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate could remain at 9.5 percent at the end of 2021 without sufficient economic stimulus now.
Right on cue, Republican calls for austerity started, with Leader McConnell calling for states to go bankrupt and lay off cops and teachers.
The same Republican senators who happily voted for the nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations when unemployment was low are now clutching their pearls over a deficit needed to address actual economic strife.
The next coronavirus relief bill needs to make sure our unemployment insurance system continues to support workers and the economy throughout this crisis, not just the next few months.
That means triggering extensions of benefits based on specific rates of unemployment instead of arbitrary timelines, bringing gig workers and others into the system permanently, and increasing traditional unemployment benefits to an appropriate level.
Whether Americans who are struggling to keep food on the table get the help they deserve should not depend on the short-term political calculations of Mitch McConnell.
Increased unemployment benefits are popular with Americans of all demographics and political beliefs, and Democrats must ensure the rug isn’t ripped out from underneath millions of American workers.
Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) is a United States Senator from Oregon.