Experts at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity are out with a new study detailing how Democrats’ expanded unemployment benefits are creating a worker shortage and having a disproportionate impact on Main Street’s hiring efforts.

With a record 9.3 million unfilled job openings and nearly half of small businesses unable to fill their job openings, it’s clear Democrats’ expanded unemployment benefits are leaving millions of Americans on the sidelines.

Republican Leader for the Ways and Means Worker and Family Support Subcommittee, Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN), who participated in the study’s unveiling said:

“These businesses have survived the pandemic. They’ve survived government-imposed shutdowns and restrictions. […] They’re struggling to survive though, because the government’s paying people to stay at home, more money than they would make if they actually got back in the workforce. It doesn’t make sense.”

The authors of the study noted that 25 states, all red states, have pulled out of the expanded unemployment benefits and that blue states are facing an unemployment rate that is on average two percentage points higher than red states.

“We can’t wait until September,” Stephen Moore warned. “States should be doing this immediately,” or Congress should act to end the programs early.

Read the full study HERE.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Dems’ Expanded Unemployment Benefits Are Crushing Main Street:

• Democrats’ $300 a week bonus unemployment benefits, along with other expansions of welfare benefits and cash payments not related to work, are contributing to a record 9.3 million unfilled jobs.

It Pays (A Lot More) Not to Work:

• In Washington, D.C. and 21 states, households can receive wage equivalent of $25 an hour in benefits with no one working.
• In 19 states benefits are equivalent of $100,000 a year in salary equivalent for family of four with two unemployed parents.
• In all but two of the blue states, $300 supplemental unemployment benefits plus other welfare pay more than the wage equivalent of a $15 minimum wage.

Our Recovery Cannot Afford Dems’ War on Work:

• Ways and Means Republicans released new analysis detailing the unprecedented government relief Congress has sent to families – which includes a family of four receiving nearly $110,000.
• Half of America’s states (and counting) have opted out of Democrats’ enhanced federal unemployment benefits in an effort to protect their economic recoveries.