U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said that he opposed the extension of $600 a week in unemployment benefits that workers are receiving as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, an option lawmakers are debating as they negotiate the next stimulus bill, the Wall Street Journal reported. Scalia said the enhanced payments, included in a federal stimulus package signed into law at the end of March, will have served their usefulness by the time the current program expires at the end of July. “That recognizes we’ll be in a very different place in July where the opportunity for people to return to work will be far greater,” Scalia said yesterday at a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. He said that Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department confirmed millions of Americans were able to return to work as states reopened their economies. “The recovery in the job market has actually happened more quickly than Congress expected in late March,” Scalia said. Extending the extra benefits is one issue Democrats and Republicans have been sparring over as they discuss policy options for the next coronavirus stimulus package. Republicans are concerned that the supplemental benefits, which give many workers more money than they were making before the crisis, will discourage people from returning to work, slowing the economic recovery. Democrats want to extend funding for the larger unemployment payments, arguing that if businesses don’t rebound quickly, the additional money will keep millions of workers afloat.
