Progressives Blast GOP Calls to End $300 Weekly Unemployment: Greed Has No Bounds
On 5/8/21 at 3:36 PM EDT
Progressive lawmakers pushed back hard after some Republicans and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for ending extra $300 weekly unemployment payments to jobless workers amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
GOP lawmakers and the Chamber of Congress, a pro-business lobby group that generally backs Republican candidates, blamed extra federal unemployment payments approved by Congress in the American Rescue Plan for the significantly less than expected job growth in April. The Department of Labor released the April jobs report on Friday, showing that the economy added just 266,000 jobs last month despite predictions that it would be closer to 1 million.
Uber Technologies Inc. has spent and fought to keep its drivers from becoming classified as employees instead of contractors, and investors finally got a glimpse of the financial reasons on Wednesday.
Uber UBER, -3.42% broke out $600 million from its total revenue of $3.5 billion to account “for the resolution of historical claims in the U.K. relating to the classification of drivers” in its first-quarter earnings results. That is a direct result of a U.K. Supreme Court ruling in March that led Uber to classify tens of thousands of drivers in the U.K. as employees.
Uber disclosed in March that it could have to pay claims of back pay due from British drivers in the case, including holiday pay, wages to equal the minimum and, potentially, pension contributions. That would be on top of what the company already paid the drivers in the 2016 case.
Second Gentleman & Labor Secretary tour Memphis job training center as they promote Biden Administration jobs & families plans
Both men said Dr. Benjamin J. Hooks Job Corps Center is a national model for job training and childcare, centerpieces of American Jobs Plan & American Families Plan. Author: Brad Broders Updated: 6:11 PM CDT May 6, 2021
MEMPHIS, Tennessee The nation s first ever Second Gentleman made his first trip to Memphis Thursday, pushing for President Biden s big ticket proposals with big price tags: the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan.
Doug Emhoff joined U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at the Dr. Benjamin Hooks Job Corps Center in Southwest Memphis and highlighted it as a national model for training and childcare at the center of those plans.
The Biden administration has pushed back on arguments like the Chamber s. Appearing on CNBC on Friday, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh rejected arguments made by Republicans and business groups that the enhanced unemployment benefits are encouraging potential workers to stay home.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also panned such critiques and told reporters Friday afternoon that she doesn t think the addition to unemployment benefits is really the factor that is making a difference. When you look across states, or across sectors, or across workers, if it were really the extra benefits that were holding back hiring, you d expect to see that either in states, or for workers in or sectors where the replacement rate due to [unemployment insurance] is very high you d expect to see lower job-finding rates, she said. And, in fact, what you see is the exact opposite.
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With Daniel Lippman
CHAMBER GOES AFTER ENHANCED UNEMPLOYMENT: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce this morning seized on April’s vastly underwhelming jobs numbers, laying the blame on the federal $300 enhanced unemployment included in President
Joe Biden’s relief package and calling for the benefit to be scrapped.