President Trump’s new plan for bringing $400 a week to the unemployed also calls on state’s to chip $100 a week at a time when many state budgets are already strained.
“This a problem not only in the state of Florida but states all across the country,” says Bankrate.com senior economist Mark Hamrick.
“They are just not in a good position to have to pony up out of their own budgets to pay for additional unemployment,” Hamrick says.
“I don’t see how we as the Florida legislature could afford to pay $100 per person,” says State Senator Lori Berman of South Palm Beach County.
“We are in a serious financial decline we’ve seen our revenues go down significantly,” Sen. Berman says.
The President made his proposal over the weekend with a series of executive orders after Congress has failed to come up with a plan to replace the $600 federal weekly benefit that expired in July.
Republican Florida Senator Rick Scott, in a statement, says he, “Appreciates that the President took action to help the American people.”
Sen. Scott went on to say, “It’s time the democrats come to the table to actually get something done.”
“I think $400 is meager, it’s especially meager for Floridians,” says Democratic Congresswoman Lois Frankel of West Palm Beach.
Frankel called the President’s plan “unworkable” and says House Democrats did pass a new relief package in May and it’s time to reach a compromise.
“We need to sit at a table and come up with a relief package for the American people,” Frankel says.