Speaker 1: It's Thursday, July. I'm Oscar Rameiras from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. Congress
Speaker 1: continues to debate what to do about enhanced jobless benefits
Speaker 1: that are set to expire at the end of next week.
Speaker 1: Some million Americans are set to lose an extra six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a week that we're given out to help
Speaker 1: keep people afloat during the pandemic shutdowns. Eric Morath, labor
Speaker 1: economics and policy reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins
Speaker 1: us for more. Thanks for joining us, Eric, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. I wanted to talk about the jobless benefits
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are getting right now. This
Speaker 1: extra six hundred dollars a week, it's set to expire
Speaker 1: at the end of the month on July. I've been
Speaker 1: seeing for administrative reasons, some states have said that the
Speaker 1: last payments will go out this weekend if the program
Speaker 1: is not extended. I know a lot of people really
Speaker 1: saw this as a lifeline when the pandemic caused a
Speaker 1: lot of states to shut down entire industries, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing that some twenty million Americans are sets lose this
Speaker 1: extra benefit. Eric tell us anything you know about updates
Speaker 1: with this? How is Congress moving along with the plan
Speaker 1: to either extend this or just let it expire. So
Speaker 1: Congress is trying to hash out what appears to be
Speaker 1: some sort of compromised The administration has signaled support for
Speaker 1: some type of extension, perhaps at a lower level, perhaps
Speaker 1: it phases out, which suggests there might be some ground
Speaker 1: to compromise. But the Democrats have already said they'd like
Speaker 1: the full sick hundred dollars to be extended in the
Speaker 1: next year, and other Republicans have called for it to
Speaker 1: be added completely. So kind of remains to be seen
Speaker 1: if there'll be a middle ground. You're exactly right that,
Speaker 1: given how these payments are made on a weekly basis,
Speaker 1: there's concerned in a number of states that effectively this
Speaker 1: money and within a few days rather than a little
Speaker 1: bit more than a week from now. So there's some
Speaker 1: urgency for Congress to maybe act even sooner than the deadline.
Speaker 1: But I've been covering things in Washington long enough. Usually
Speaker 1: we have to read to exactly the deadline before we
Speaker 1: get a compromise exactly. I've been seeing from some Republicans
Speaker 1: that they possibly would be open to extending it if
Speaker 1: it was set at a lower amount between two hundred
Speaker 1: and four hundred dollars. And one of the things they're
Speaker 1: reasoning for that is that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: actually making more money with this added unemployment benefit than
Speaker 1: they would through their normal jobs. And one of the
Speaker 1: lines of thinking is that people don't want to come
Speaker 1: back to work because they're making more money on unemployment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's correct. The University of Chicago did his study and
Speaker 1: they found a little more than two thirds of those
Speaker 1: receiving unemployment benefits are receiving more income now than they
Speaker 1: did at their previous jobs. And how we got to
Speaker 1: that point is the six hundred dollars was intended to
Speaker 1: boost the average unemployment payment to the median wage for
Speaker 1: a full time worker in the US. But what we've
Speaker 1: learned since is that the person laid off wasn't the
Speaker 1: median wage earner, much more likely to be a lower
Speaker 1: wage worker, someone that maybe works at our restaurant, a
Speaker 1: hotel somewhere in the tourism industry, and those folks often,
Speaker 1: you know, make less than the twenty three or twenty
Speaker 1: four dollars an hour that the unemployment benefits pay, so
Speaker 1: even lowering it to three or four hundred, there will
Speaker 1: be some workers that will still be paid more. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly if you're making the minimum wage, which still in
Speaker 1: many states, even two hundred on top of unemployment benefits
Speaker 1: could mean that you're making more money than you did before,
Speaker 1: but certainly smaller share of workers. One, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff on the table. Obviously, what are we hearing
Speaker 1: about another round of stimulus checks? The last time it
Speaker 1: was individual payments to people. Are we hearing any movement
Speaker 1: on that front. Yeah, again, the administration has signaled support
Speaker 1: for that, and that kind of brings up this debate
Speaker 1: around you know, should these payments be targeted. One way
Speaker 1: to target them is two people who lost their jobs.
Speaker 1: Another way to target them is to businesses that say
Speaker 1: they need loans or grants to continue to employee. Or
Speaker 1: you don't target and you say, you know, anyone that
Speaker 1: makes below a certain income level gets another check. Now,
Speaker 1: that puts a lot of stimulus into the economy, so
Speaker 1: that would probably help support the economic growth. It's kind
Speaker 1: of found money, but at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily directly helping those that lost their jobs
Speaker 1: or their businesses have suffered due to the pandemic. There
Speaker 1: was a couple of interesting things I saw in one
Speaker 1: of her latest articles talking about all of this. On
Speaker 1: the employer's side, you know, some businesses might need to
Speaker 1: raise wages to attract workers to either get them out
Speaker 1: of the you know, want to get out of unemployment,
Speaker 1: or just even I feel like it's worth their safety,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're scared about getting sick. But that's
Speaker 1: a difficult thing to do, especially right now with how
Speaker 1: slow things are going. So, you know, we talked to
Speaker 1: for that article someone who operates a call center Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, he's offering fifteen dollars an
Speaker 1: hour for those jobs, just kind of actually a little
Speaker 1: involved the industry standard. And he said, you know, he
Speaker 1: can't get worker because many of the people that he
Speaker 1: would hire for this job are making something more than
Speaker 1: twenty dollars now or on unemployment benefits. So you can
Speaker 1: understand how that would be difficult for them. You know,
Speaker 1: some economists, though, said, you know, maybe that means you
Speaker 1: need to raise your wages. Because it's a different ballgame now.
Speaker 1: People may not want to report to an office. People
Speaker 1: may not be able to because they have childcare issues,
Speaker 1: or they or someone they know is sick. The challenges
Speaker 1: and this was the business owner told me. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I raised everyone's wages, I wouldn't win any contract.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the argument that you can't operate
Speaker 1: your business profitably if you greatly increased wages. But you know,
Speaker 1: I do think there's probably some middle ground. A lot
Speaker 1: of discussion, and among academia at least, is that people
Speaker 1: who are considered essential workers. The idea that essential worker
Speaker 1: also is the lowest paid and therefore, apparently in economic term,
Speaker 1: the least value worker doesn't really make sense to a
Speaker 1: lot of economists. Ups and then I think that businesses
Speaker 1: will have to be examine. The last thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask is because there's just some interesting notes in
Speaker 1: it about which states would be the most affected by
Speaker 1: these extra benefits expiring. Nevada would be the worst state affected.
Speaker 1: They have the highest share of workers who are getting
Speaker 1: these enhanced benefits. Nevada's economy has really been decimated by
Speaker 1: a coronavirus because so much of it is tied to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas tourism. The vast majority people that live in
Speaker 1: Nevada live in the Las Vegas area, and most are
Speaker 1: within one or two degrees to the casino and entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: So you know, even people like doctors and accountants, you know,
Speaker 1: they are getting their business by helping people who work
Speaker 1: at these hotels and casino So that area has been
Speaker 1: really hard hit, and you know some of them have
Speaker 1: been allowed to reopen. But destinations the Hawaiian another place
Speaker 1: they're really seeing their economy hit, whereas some places like
Speaker 1: the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, now they're doing a little
Speaker 1: bit better because they're getting people who don't want to
Speaker 1: fly to Hawaii and maybe they're willing to drive from
Speaker 1: New York to Tennessee, for example. The conversation continues to
Speaker 1: see what's going to happen with these extra benefits. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine Congress not doing something, but what form it
Speaker 1: will take is going to be the big question. Eric Morath,
Speaker 1: Labor economics and policy reporter at The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us. Sure, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to join you as always. I'm Oscar Ramirez, and this
Speaker 1: has been reopening America. Don't forget there today's big news stories.
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