Americans must be able to return to work safely and sensibly, but keeping the $600 a week extra unemployment benefits won't help them reconnect to their jobs, particularly if the businesses are gone by the time the benefits run out, Rep. Kevin Brady said Thursday.
"We've got to make sure the millions of Americans who are temporarily unemployed aren't permanently unemployed, and that focus has to be reconnecting workers with their previous jobs or a good job," the Texas Republican told MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle. "We have to make sure they're returning to healthy workplaces. That's why this week, Ways and Means [Committee] Republicans introduced a tax credit to help shoulder the cost for businesses on testing, PPE [personal protective equipment], and reconfiguring their workplaces just to make sure they are healthy and safe for the workers and customers."
Ruhle pointed out that several small businesses have shut down, but Brady emphasized that the small business optimism level is over 100, a level it hasn't been at since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"About 40% of those small businesses cannot find workers to return to work because those federal benefits, which are designed to help people who are out of work, proved to be so generous that many Americans receive more money to not work than to go back to work," said Brady.
Brady added that in Texas, many businesses reported that Paycheck Protection Program loans saved their companies, but they couldn't find workers who would return to work because they were making more money by staying on unemployment.
But still, there will be some companies that will be slower to recover, such as in the restaurant industry, so it's important to create targeted relief that will help people return to work than to "just throw money around and hope it helps," said Brady.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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