Atlanta labor leaders, community groups and unemployed workers are protesting Gov. Brian Kemp’s recent decision to end supplemental federal unemployment aid.
Last Thursday, Kemp said Georgia will no longer participate in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides an additional $300 a week to Georgia’s unemployed. The PUA, which supplements unemployment pay, will end June 26 in Georgia. The federal program ends in September, but Kemp is opting out of the program next month in an effort to get more Georgians to go back to work sooner.
I no longer live in my home state of Georgia, but I feel deep humiliation for it. What future political ambitions could Kemp possibly have to drive him to make or support multiple regressive decisions?
When you have money, a roof over your head, food on your table and clothes on your butt, you don’t see the world from another’s view point. Kemp does because he can without regard for the trials and troubles others might experience. Businesses need employees, and employees need money. Pay me a salary higher than I can get with unemployment and I’m more than thrilled to return to work. Thing is, do I have the necessary qualifications to return to work in post COVID-19 world. The job I left doesn’t exist anymore, I’m unable to go back to where I previously worked! Talk about a “rock and a hard place,” what am I supposed to do?