Georgia Iowa And Florida And The Unemployment Scam

If you thought the push from states like Georgia, Iowa, and Florida to reopen and get jobs and the economy back to normal was just an act of kindness and gestures of good will from the governors, guess again!

Politics
Georgia, Iowa, and Florida are up to no good and many of their residents are too blinded by the dazzle of returning to normal to see it.  Their ploy to reopen bowling alleys, barbershops, and nail salons may appear on the surface as a merry gift to the people, but what it really all comes down to is the almighty dollar.

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Here’s the trick: with governor’s reopening blue-collar type businesses, workers have been given an impossible choice.  They can either return to their jobs and risk becoming victim to the current or predicted 2nd wave of coronavirus infections, or they can lose their unemployment benefits.

You see, for as long as businesses are forcibly closed, states are required to pay unemployment insurance to furloughed workers.  However, if businesses are allowed to reopen and workers still make the choice not to return to work, states have an out clause to avoid paying them anything.

The scheme was uncovered recently when Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa blatantly warned workers in her state that they will lose their unemployment benefits if they refuse to return to work. She backed up her claims by referring to a state agency that provides employment services for individual workers.  According to the Iowa Workforce Development, an employee’s refusal to return to work out of fear is considered a “voluntary quit” and therefore just cause for the state to cease paying unemployment benefits.

Gov. Kemp of Georgia and Gov. DeSantis of Florida, both Republicans, have joined Iowa in pulling the same stunt.

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According to The Atlantic, Kemp has turned his residents into lab rats to see just how far he can push the envelope.

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Georgia’s brash reopening puts much of the state’s working-class in an impossible bind: risk death at work, or risk ruining yourself financially at home. In the grips of a pandemic, the approach is a morbid experiment in just how far states can push their people. Georgians are now the largely unwilling canaries in an invisible coal mine, sent to find out just how many individuals need to lose their job or their life for a state to work through a plague.

– Amanda Mull, The Atlantic
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The State of Florida already makes it nearly impossible for residents to file for unemployment insurance.  In fact, according to Politico, the state system is doing exactly what Republicans designed it to do — minimize the number of jobless Floridians who can access state aid, so as to minimize business owners’ tax obligations.

“It’s a sh*t sandwich, and it was designed that way by [former Gov.] Scott,” said an advisor to Gov. Ron DeSantis. “It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”

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Of course, these states have a master scam-artist ally in the Oval Office.

Despite recently admitting COVID-19 deaths are on the rise and that 90,000 Americans will likely succumb to the virus, Donald Trump is still promoting the reopening of states and businesses ASAP.  But why?  As with anything else, it all boils down to what’s in the best interest of Donald Trump.

Trump realizes that a failed economy combined with unemployed and cash-broke Americans in November is a death sentence for his reelection campaign.  Remarkably, he’d rather see Americans risk their lives while working than to see his hopes for a 2nd term go up in smoke with them home, broke, and not working.  With that said, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump is gleefully backing Georgia, Iowa, and Florida in their push to reopen immediately.

So, while states all across the country begin lifting COVID-19 restrictions and allow all sorts of non-essential businesses to reopen, don’t fall for the okeydoke.  As Georgia, Iowa, and Florida are now proving, it’s all a GOP ploy to save states from having to pay millions of dollars in unemployment claims and to keep residents from getting too comfortable and dependent on state assistance.

OK WASSUP! discusses Politics:
Unemployment games from Georgia, Iowa, and Florida