SD Gov. Kristi Noem's rejection of Trump's unemployment benefits is hurting South Dakota's economy.

There is no rationale for Noem’s rejection (as depicted in the approving image above found on youtube) of millions of dollars in unemployment benefits offered by President Trump as a replacement for the expired CARES Act benefits. There is no rationale, none, either in terms of plain human concerns for people out of work or for any particular economic gain to the state. On the contrary, Noem’s stubborness is actually a detriment to South Dakota’s economy.

Numbers just released by the South Dakota Department of Labor show that our state had just under 30,000 unemployed workers in July, which puts our unemployment rate at 6.3%, about twice what it was in July, 2019. That means if Trump’s plan (calling for $400/week, but allowing for $300/wk in states that can’t contribute their $100 weekly share) translated into a $300/week extra unemployment benefit through December to our laid-off workers, South Dakota would be getting $9 million a week from Washington.

That’s a lot of purchasing power to reject, for whatever reason. I hear that there are more job openings than unemployed people in South Dakota, so I suppose that Noem’s intransigience is heavily based on an opinion that people out of work should be able to find jobs, so there’s no need to accept any help from Washington on granting additional benefits.

No doubt some believe that workers gaining extra benefits are reluctant (“disincentivized” is the term often used) to seek work because they’re receiving enough money to get by from unemployment checks.

Intuitive as that argument seems, there’s no data to support it.

Read more: https://www.sdstandardnow.com/home/sd-gov-kristi-noems-stubborn-resistance-to-accepting-the-unemployment-benefits-being-offered-by-trumps-plan-is-hurting-south-dakotas-economy