Republican Senator Josh Hawley is calling on Congress to pay 80% of wages for US workers throughout the coronavirus crisis and to incentivize businesses to rehire laid off or furloughed workers:
DC EXAMINER – Sen. Josh Hawley said the federal government should prepare to cover 80% of U.S. workers’ wages up to the national median during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Because the government has taken the step of closing the economy to protect public health, Congress should in turn protect every single job in this country for the duration of this crisis. And Congress should help our businesses rehire every worker who has already lost a job because of the coronavirus,” the Missouri Republican wrote Wednesday in a column for the Washington Post. “Beginning immediately, the federal government should cover 80 percent of wages for workers at any U.S. business, up to the national median wage, until this emergency is over.”
“Further, it should offer businesses a bonus for rehiring workers laid off over the past month. The goal must be to get unemployment down — now — to secure American workers and their families, and to help businesses get ready to restart as soon as possible,” the senator added.
The median salary the average U.S. worker received at the end of 2019 was $48,672, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Hawley slammed “old ideas” such as “tweaking the tax code.” President Trump last month proposed a cut to the payroll tax in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Didn’t we already do that with the 2.2 trillion dollar stimulus package? There must be a money tree in Washington DC somewhere, because otherwise I don’t know where all of this money is coming from.
Look I get the responsibility of the state to help people out since they are the ones that shut everything down. But 2.2 trillion dollars is a lot of money that we’ve already spent. If you took half of that, one trillion dollars, you could give everyone in the workforce (157 million) almost $6400 each. If you took a quarter of it you could give everyone $3200 each. I know all 157 million don’t make less than the median salary, but most do (somewhere around 120 million). By my calculations Hawley is talking some serious money here on top of what we’ve already spent.
The best thing we can do is get back to work sooner than later. Things are already starting to break, with businesses shutting down and employees fired. The longer we keep this up, the more things will break and it will be even more difficult to put humpty economy back together again.