Ohio accepts unemployment aid Staff and Wire Reports

Jobless will get $300 a week from federal aid, but state not adding $100.

Gov. Mike DeWine has ruled out the state kicking in an additional $100 a week on top of a White House plan to provide COVID-19impacted unemployed workers with an additional $300 a week in federal assistance.

One option outlined by President Donald Trump involved an additional $400 a week in jobless benefits with states providing $100 of that total, but Ohio plans no new spending, said DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney.

Ohio instead plans to move forward with a version of the plan that provides $300 a week in federal funds, in addition to state benefits, to the unemployed, Tierney said. Ohio’s $100 share required under Trump’s order can be covered from the state’s existing unemployment payments.

Of course that means Ohio’s unemployed would get only $300 in additional federal assistance instead of the $400 touted by

Trump.

The new aid also won’t go to anyone getting $100 or less in state unemployment help. It was not immediately apparent how many recipients would lose out under that loophole.

Tierney noted the state hasn’t determined when it will be able to start paying out the additional federal money.

The state still will need to change software programming in its slammed unemployment compensation computer system

to provide the $300 a week in federal benefits, which will be retroactive, Tierney said.

Whether at $300 or $400 more a week, the amount will be less than the $600 additional a week the unemployed received as part of a federal COVID-19 relief bill through July 25.

It all could be irrelevant; many say Trump’s action is illegal and/or unconstitutional.

Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the nonprofit group Common Cause, said, “President Trump resorted to unconstitutional half measures that will do little to address the serious issues facing the nation. The power of the purse is granted to Congress in the Constitution whether President Trump likes it or not.”

A record number of jobless claims amid the forced business closures accompanying a stay-at-home order wiped out the already-ailing state unemployment fund in June, forcing the state to borrow up to $3 billion from the federal government.

About 3,854 workers in

Butler, Champaign, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Warren counties newly applied for unemployment compensation the last week in July, which was a 15% decrease from the previous week, according to state data released Thursday.

In the seven-county region, 47,381 residents filed continued jobless benefits in the week ending July 25, a 3% decrease from the week ending July 11, the data show.

Ohioans have filed a record 1.583 million unemployment claims since the start of the pandemic, more than the past four years combined. A total of 25,952 first-time claims were filed for the week ending Aug. 1, with 404,434 receiving ongoing jobless benefits.

Ohio has paid out $5.8 billion to 771,000 unemployed workers over the past 20 weeks, plus another $4.9 billion in federal benefits to 503,000 self-employed Ohioans.

State unemployment benefits typically replace about 50% of lost wages, with the maximum weekly benefit capped at $480 for a person with no dependents. An unemployed worker with one or two dependents can receive $102 more a week.

Some groups, like the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute and Policy Matters Ohio, have called on federal lawmakers to extend the enhanced jobless benefits.

The enhanced benefits are helping prop up the economy and consumer spending, because it puts money into the pockets of unemployed workers, allowing them to continue to buy goods and services they need, said Zach Schiller, research director for Policy Matters Ohio.

If the supplemental benefits go away, many Ohioans will lose purchasing power and will struggle to pay their bills and will have to cut spending, he said, and businesses will see significantly lower sales and demand, which would lead to more layoffs, contributing to a downward economic spiral.

“It doesn’t just help the families that are directly affected, which in Ohio is more than half a million Ohioans,” he said. “It helps all of us, because it’s critical to maintaining demand.”