GOP shifting on unemployment benefits as jobless numbers swell

Faced with staggering unemployment numbers that are likely to remain elevated through the election, Senate Republicans are reversing their positions on ending a federal increase of state unemployment benefits after July.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed in a conference call with House Republicans last month that Senate Republicans would block the $600 weekly boost to state unemployment benefits from the federal government.

Also last month, GOP senators involved in planning for a phase four coronavirus relief bill said there was overwhelming support for entirely ending the federal enhancement of state unemployment benefits.

Now with the national unemployment rate projected to hit or exceed 20 percent, the highest number since the Great Depression, a growing number of GOP senators say the federal government should continue to augment weekly unemployment benefits in some form — though most want it lower than the $600 figure.

GOP senators fear that the wave of protests, riots and other forms of social unrest that has rocked major cities around the country is linked to the bleak economic picture and that their majority is on the line.

There’s broad agreement within the Senate GOP conference that the $600 per week federal enhancement of state unemployment benefits — a core element of the $2.2. trillion CARES Act — is too generous and provides a disincentive for returning to work.