Many unemployed Floridians are uncertain of their future as the newly proposed HEALS Act may potentially decrease their federal unemployment benefits.
The bill proposes replacing the $600 Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments with $200 FPUC payments. The first wave of $600 FPUC payments came from the CARES Act and expired on July 25.
Many officials have argued dispersing this amount of money makes people not want to go back to work.
“This is a double-edged sword,” said economist Don Wiggins. “One side of the coin is it helps people, but if you overdo it, it discourages people from going back to work.”
For many states, decreasing FPUC payments may not be a big deal as their state benefits are a livable amount.
For many Floridians that $600 FPUC money was their lifeline.
Wiggins said this is a battle of short term versus long term.
Short term, we need families to stay afloat during the pandemic. But long term, what will be the repercussions of the spending?
“At some point, the bill comes due,” Wiggins said. “Either in the form of reduced government spending, higher taxes, or inflation.”
With decreased benefits, state representative Carlos Guillermo Smith said many Florida families will fail.
“There are so many long term solutions that we can be talking about,” Guillermo-Smith said. “Right now, what’s the alternative to not extending federal unemployment benefits? Seeing millions of people on the street, evicted from their homes because they didn’t pay their rent? That’s not even an option.”
Wiggins said both sides have valid arguments, but the real battle is COVID-19. The faster a vaccine can be released, the faster the country can get back up and running.
“It a race between getting the stimulus bill into people’s hands and the vaccine,” Wiggins said. “And I can’t tell you who is going to win that race.”