While I applaud congress for moving fast in March and April to get money out to people, there were bound to be holes in the act, and paying people more while on unemployment than they were previously making is one of them. It's not that I see it as a disincentive to work, but something feels very unfair about it, making for bad optics. I'm surprised the Democrats are pushing so hard for $600 without the caveat that unemployment won't pay more than you were previously making. Seems like a pretty easy compromise.
depends on one's priorities. that "extra" cash likely prevented an even worse pandemic outcome in the US, as paying people to say home (which is what this amounted to, essentially) was among the best public health outcomes that the US could have had engineered. a rare bug-turned-feature outcome.
It's an election year. $600/week is a great motivator to encourage first time voters (and potential life long voters). I'm not surprised they want to be seen as fighting hard for down on their luck workers more than they want to compromise to help down on their luck workers.
Most people I've seen have simply been using that mismatch to push a higher minimum wage (of, say, $15, which a lot of people have been pushing for for a while, and is the same as $600 a week).
