Steny Hoyer with Katy Tur on Extending Unemployment Benefits

[stopbush]

Today on MSNBC:

[aquamarina]

1. I am glad

To hear that someone is talking about the Hero’s Act again - especially the need to continue enhanced unemployment benefits. The economy will crater if it isn’t passed and who actually gives a rip if a few people make more. That only suggests to me that there are a lot of underpaid people in this country.

Mortgages
Rent
Child Care
Car payments
Food
Utilities
Health Insurance
Food

and on and on and on...

Fuck those Republicans who don’t give a shit whether we live or die or can pay our bills.

Fuck every last one of them.

[HotTeaBag]

2. Yep. I feel however that they will do the right thing

but only because it's an election year and they are experiencing um, headwinds.

[elleng]

3. 'They' who?

[HotTeaBag]

11. Senate Republicans.

.

[aquamarina]

4. I agree HotTeaBag

It will be political suicide if the Repukes blow off the Hero’s Act. There are simply not enough rich republican voters to cover for Moscow.

[HotTeaBag]

12. Yep, and the saddest thing is that if this wasn't an election year

I have serious doubts that they would be at all motivated to help 'regular' American people at all.

It literally takes the threat of losing their jobs to get these guys to do the right thing.

Incredible.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. I wish they'd pay attn...

to all the 1099 self-employed subcontractors out here. With the gig economy there are millions of us. We didn’t get that extra $600; I have yet to get the PAU special unemployment benefit they created for 1099 people.

In lieu of UBI, maybe more stimulus checks along with rent/mortgage forgiveness. That would help so many. 😢

[stopbush]

6. I got the $600 here in CA as an IC, but four weeks in, the EDD

switched my claim from my newly filed 1099 claim for 2019 to an old W2 claim I filed with a job that ended in 7/2018. Now, that old claim has been exhausted and I’m waiting for two weeks now for my new claim to be extended under the PUA. Three calls to the EDD have not resulted in my receiving extended benefits. All three reps I spoke with say that EDD should have automatically filed the extension on my behalf, but they didn't.

I have no idea how they are deciding what determines all this.

[stopbush]

8. Hey, my extension went through, though my weekly CA benefit

dropped from $450 to $167.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. Yikes...

But wow about you getting the $600 initially. I thought it was a federal thing that 1099 weren't eligible for that but I guess it's state by state. I'm in NC. Maybe if/when ANYTHING finally comes through it will magically include that...lol.

Godspeed to you. Most of us need an awful lot of help right now...

[MoonlitKnight]

7. Too many not getting the unemployment benefits

A lot of states have screwed it up badly.

Better to give everyone a good sized monthly payment right away. It also negates the Republican argument about no incentive to go back to work. If you are willing to work you still get the money. If you can’t, you get help.

[stopbush]

9. The R argument that people are making more on UI than they did working

and therefore don’t want to return to work is IRRELEVANT.

The point SHOULD be that the higher pay on unemployment acts as an INCENTIVE to NOT RETURN TO WORK TOO SOON. People need money to survive. If the UI benefits are significantly LOWER than what one made at their job, the incentive is to go back to work too soon, which we have seen PLAYS RIGHT INTO THE VIRUS’ HANDS. Pay people what it takes to keep them home, because that is the only way we are going to beat this virus.

Ds need to make this argument, because it would be the right argument to make if Rs hadn’t so completely fucked up the way people think in this country over the past 50 years.

[Amishman]

14. disincentive angle is BS, if you refuse to go back, you lose unemployment anyway

If you refuse to return to work, you lose eligibility for unemployment. Its already how the rules are set up. The Republicans disincentive angle just doesn't hold water as people can't just stay on unemployment when their job reopens.

[Johnny2X2X]

13. Highlights how inadequate UE is and how low wages are

Last edited Tue Jul 14, 2020, 03:23 PM - Edit history (1)

UE amounts are not enough, in my state they cap out at $362 a week. So for middle to higher income folk, getting laid off is catastrophic.

The $600 a week is offensive to Republicans, but not for the reasons they state. It's offensive to them because it highlights where wages should be for people to be able to live in dignity. The do not want workers to get a taste of a living wage or they fear they'll want that going forward, and they're right.

[stopbush]

15. Exactly. If they had any principles or real beliefs they would be saying

that the higher UI benefit is a great thing because it gives low-wage workers a taste of what a better-paying job pays, thus acting as an incentive to the low-paid worker to find ways to elevate themselves into a better-paying job, through training etc.

But their true feelings are the exact opposite of that.