Unemployment Bonus: Treasury Secretary's 'Overpaid' Comments Has Twitter Sounding Off
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended Republicans' position on the now-expired weekly $600 [...]
He said yesterday that unemployment should replace wages. In no instance when I’ve collected unemployment did it fully replace wages. It’s a percentage of take home pay. So if $600/wk is giving one more, they are barely getting paid to start with.
— Lisa Robinson (@LAR65) August 2, 2020
However, a Yale study found that the $600 per week benefit did not stop people from trying to find jobs. "The data does not show a relationship between benefit generosity and employment paths after the CARES Act, which could be due to the collapse of labor demand during the COVID-19 crisis," Joseph Altonji, the Thomas DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said of the study. Yale researchers' study was based on data from Homebase, which produces scheduling and timesheet programs for small businesses.
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"There are certain cases where we are paying more for people to stay at home than work." - Mnuchin
Easy to say when you can stay home AND work remotely.
This is a health crisis creating an economic crisis. Pushing people outside w/o a national health strategy makes both worse.
— Brian Page (@FinEdChat) August 2, 2020
When ABC News' Martha Raddatz brought up the study, Mnuchin countered with a Chicago study "that goes through all the people that are overpaid." He insisted there are "cases where people are underpaid" and the main issue is "we need to come up with an agreement to extend this."
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prevnextI wish that someone would point out that THERE ARE ONLY A TINY FRACTION OF JOBS AVAILABLE DURING THIS PANDEMIC. This is not anything like a normal unemployment situation so these “overpayment” discussions are ridiculous. Fact: Ppl can’t work at jobs that don’t exist anymore.
— Susan Cox (@susanicox) August 2, 2020
prevnextExactly. It’s only 31,000 a year before taxes.
— Sandra Abeyta (@SandyAbeyta) August 2, 2020
prevnextFederal minimum wage: $7.25 an hour
Federal Unemployment: $15 an hourMnuchin, who was born on 3rd base and is worth 300 million, is afraid people on minimum wage are being overpaid. They could easily fix this problem my raising the minimum wage but they don't want to do that.
— Black Chuck Todd (@BlackChuckTodd) August 2, 2020
prevAnd it’s a bad thing people are getting paid more? And how is 600 over paid that means They were probably underpaid to begin with! They have no regards for how real life works do they?
— leeder899 (@leeder899) August 2, 2020