Steny Hoyer with Katy Tur on Extending Unemployment Benefits

[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.