Spencer Finley

Staff Writer

sjf5814@psu.edu

Over Labor Day weekend, emergency unemployment assistance, including expanded unemployment eligibility and duration and increased unemployment benefits, enacted in 2020 expired.

According to NPR, over 12 million Americans benefited from expanded unemployment, with many people receiving unemployment when they otherwise would not have, or otherwise receiving increased payments. Over the long weekend, these benefits expired. 

The majority of beneficiaries will simply stop receiving payments; those who continue to receive checks will see their payment drop by $300 per week. The expiration of emergency unemployment benefits comes as hiring in the United States slows down, with the number of jobs added in August of 2021 (approximately 235,000) being less than a quarter of the number of jobs added in either June or July, likely owing to a marked increase in COVID-19 cases. 

There are currently no plans to stop federal unemployment benefits expiring. A letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to heads of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee expressed the Biden Administration’s view that “The boost was always intended to be temporary and it is appropriate for that benefit boost to expire.”

When further explaining the administration’s rationale for allowing the benefits to expire, Secretary Yellen wrote that specific localities were experiencing varying levels of economic distress and different threats from COVID-19. She elaborates that the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan allocates over $350 million to states for discretionary spending, meaning that they would have the ability to address local unemployment crises individually, instead of the federal government approaching the problem with a one-size-fits-all solution.

Many Republicans had been calling for an end to expanded unemployment benefits for some time. In a statement published by CBS News Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R) said after eliminating many of Arizona’s emergency unemployment measures that “In Arizona, we’re going to use federal money to encourage people to work…instead of paying people not to work.”

A similar sentiment was expressed by a number of other Republican governors, including Governor Greg Abbott of Texas and Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland when their respective states’ expanded unemployment benefits were terminated. However, claims that expanded unemployment payments have incentivised people to remain unemployed are largely unsubstantiated by real data. According to a study referenced by NPR, people living in states which terminated expanded benefits were only slightly more likely to have found a job, despite the vast quantity of available positions.