The executive orders President Donald Trump issued Saturday included a provision to extend bonus unemployment payments for several more weeks, but it’s uncertain when, how or if Oregon will make those payments.
“We support any and all relief that will come to Oregonians during this very difficult time,” the Oregon Employment Department said in a statement Saturday. “We also trust the political process and know that our congressional delegation has been working hard to come up with a fair and equitable relief package that states, including Oregon, will be able to implement quickly.”
The department said it would say more on its response to Trump’s executive order “in the coming days.”
Jobless workers had been receiving a $600 weekly bonus since March, when Congress funded the expanded payments to provide financial support to the unemployed during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s in addition to regular, weekly unemployment checks.
The bonus money ran out at the end of July – in Oregon and most other states, the additional $600 payments stopped July 26. Congressional negotiations over an extension, and other financial stimulus measures, broke down last week.
So on Saturday, Trump issued an order authorizing $300 in federal payments for the unemployment bonus. The president’s order would redirect $44 billion in disaster relief funds to pay for the bonus, which would cover about five weeks of extended benefits.
There is some question about the legality of Trump’s order because the Constitution gives Congress control over the nation’s spending. Legal scholars seem to think it may be within the president’s authority to redirect the disaster relief funds, but unemployment benefits are administered by individual states and it’s unclear how they will respond to the legal uncertainty.
Additionally, the president suggested states should find $100 of their own money to help fund the bonus. That would bring total payments to $400, assuming Oregon and other cash-strapped states choose to pay for the expanded benefits. That’s one-third less than the payments that lapsed at the end of July.
Asked Saturday whether any states have committed to pay the $100 for expanded unemployment benefits, Trump didn’t answer directly, but insisted “they have the money.”
“That’s up to them,” the president said. “But if they don’t, they don’t. That’s going to be their problem.”
Oregon had $5 billion in its unemployment insurance trust fund at the beginning of the pandemic, and it was rated as among the best funded in the nation. But after months of record unemployment, Oregon has warned in recent weeks that it’s possible an extended recession could ultimately drain the trust fund.
Additional payments from the trust fund could, of course, hasten that process.
Oregon warned last month that if Congress allowed the expanded $600 benefits to lapse that it would take several weeks to restore the payments, even if lawmakers ultimately agree to pay them and make them retroactive. Oregon, like other states, uses antiquated computers that do not easily adjust to changes in the benefits program.
Many congressional Republicans oppose the expanded unemployment benefits, which they say they drain the federal treasury and act as a disincentive for laid-off employees to return to work. Economists, though, say the benefits provide an important economic stimulus and note that, with the nation’s unemployment rate at 10.2%, most unemployed don’t have jobs to return to.
Oregon’s unemployment rate was 11.2% in June. The employment department says it has paid unemployment benefits to more than 350,000 Oregonians since the middle of March, when the state’s pandemic shutdown began.
Tens of thousands of others are still waiting for benefits as the state navigates the complex benefits process and works to overcome chronic technological shortcomings.
-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway |
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Oregon unclear on whether it will pay Trump’s $400 unemployment bonus - OregonLive
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