Both Republican-led chambers of the Wisconsin legislature voted to end the extra federal unemployment benefits on Wednesday, a measure that Gov. Evers has signaled he’ll veto.
25 Republican-led states have already ended or are set to end their participation early in federal unemployment programs, according to a CNBC report.
“We will return back to the system we had before which is the idea that unemployment is a short term bridge while you look for a new job,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a press conference. “We are now in the most critical season for many businesses in Wisconsin, and that is the summer.”
Federal guidelines have set the extra $300 monthly payment to expire on September 6, which has been added to a maximum of a $370 weekly state benefit to boost unemployment during the pandemic. Republican leaders, joined by organizations like the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, are pushing to end it while touting labor shortages they blame on individuals not wanting to go back to work.
The WMC has gone as far as creating an ad that blames Gov. Evers for not taking action to fix the workforce shortage. A spokesperson said they’ve heard of the shortage anecdotally through their 4,000 members spanning a variety of industries, who attribute it frequently to the extra federal benefit.
When asked for data that connects the worker shortage to the extra federal unemployment benefit, a spokesperson pointed to a research report from the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco that found about one out of every seven job applicants might have turned down a job because of the extra benefit, but the report was not able to draw a definite conclusion on it or cite a definite connection.
“This implies a small but likely noticeable contribution of expanded UI generosity to job-finding rates and employers’ perceptions of worker availability in early 2021,” the report read.
Democrats point to a lack of specific data connecting the two things as one reason why stopping the federal benefit won’t improve the labor shortage issues in Wisconsin.
“We had a shortage of people before the pandemic, too. What we need to do is look at this long-term,” Gov. Evers said in an interview on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, no one has provided the data to me that suggests there are all these people out there that are not entering the workforce when they could.”
While a split government in Wisconsin means the vote is unlikely to get the gubernatorial stamp of approval, the trend underscores growing tensions over claims about labor shortages post-pandemic. On Wednesday, there were more than 107,000 jobs posted on the Job Center of Wisconsin, across all industries. The statewide unemployment rate, meanwhile, has largely returned to Wisconsin’s pre-pandemic levels.
In floor debate on Wednesday, lawmakers from both parties agreed that issues like a lack of affordable childcare are contributing to the shortage. But Republicans maintained that the wave of worker shortages can still be attributed in part to federal unemployment.
“We’ve been giving excuse after excuse after excuse today about why we can’t remove one barrier,” Rep. Robert Brooks (R-Saukville) said, who referenced an ad he ran for hiring waiters and bartenders at the restaurant he owns in Saukville, the Railroad Station. He had few applicants, he said. “[The shortage] is not anecdotal.”
Current trends have pointed to worker shortages nationwide as individuals seek higher paying jobs, change careers, or aren’t yet able to enter the workforce post-pandemic.
“The number of jobs far outstrip the number of people,” Gov. Evers said. “We need a long-term solution around affordable housing, around transportation, around transit. If we don’t start looking at things holistically and connecting the dots, we’re going to be talking about this again next year at this time, that I should be kicking people off unemployment compensation.”
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