Dem Rep. Jeffries: ‘No Empirical Evidence’ $600 Unemployment Insurance ‘Incentivizing People to Stay at Home’

As Congress weighs another coronavirus stimulus package, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Wednesday’s “MSNBC Live” said the notion that the unemployment insurance of $600 a week is incentivizing people to not seek employment “has no basis in reality.”

Jeffries argued “there’s no empirical evidence” to prove the unemployment insurance is keeping people home rather than working. According to Jeffries, such a belief is “insulting” to Americans who want to work.

“You know, we have lost over 50 million jobs,” Jeffries emphasized. “There are no jobs to return home to … or return back to work to. And America is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We should be able to provide some measure of modest assistance to people in the midst of a deadly pandemic where the economy is in recession, possibly heading toward Depression-like conditions.”

“There’s no empirical evidence that the $600 emergency unemployment insurance enhancement is incentivizing people to stay at home,” he added. “In many ways, that argument is insulting to everyday Americans who want to work, who view employment with the dignity that it traditionally has here in America. But they just want to be able to provide a comfortable living for themselves.”

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