Hoyer: ‘Some Validity’ That $600 Unemployment Benefit Disincentivizes Work – ‘It’s Not 600 or Bust’

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) stated that there is “some validity” to arguments that the $600 unemployment benefit disincentivizes people from returning to work and stated that Democrats do not have a position of “600 or bust” on the unemployment benefit.

Host John Berman asked, “One of the things that Republicans — some Republicans say is that $600 serves as a disincentive to go back to work. It is more in some cases than they say that people were making at the beginning. So, what do you say to that?”

Hoyer responded, “I think that’s an argument that is — has some validity to it, and we ought to deal with that, and there is a way to deal with that. But not this way, not cold turkey, not here you have it, now you don’t.”

He added, “It’s not 600 or bust. You know, you don’t — Speaker Pelosi said the other day, which I thought was a great line, we don’t have red lines, we have values. And we’re going into these negotiations with values. To say that, 600 or nothing, no, that’s not where we are. We’re prepared to discuss this.”

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