republicans at the state level are
trying to stop team biden's ballooning
of the welfare state
now 16 states are eliminating the
extended
federal unemployment benefits known as
the top up
because they know the best welfare
program is actually
a good paying job let us not deter
good paying jobs joining us now the
governor of one of those states who took
action governor kim reynolds from iowa
governor reynolds wonderful to see you
man terrific thanks for coming on the
show
appreciate it very much what um what
what prompted you were you hearing it
from you know
farm people business people that the
gener
the unemployment benefits were just too
generous and jobs were
going and begging what was the trigger
yeah well thank you larry for having me
on it's great to see you again
you know iowa is open for business and
we have been even throughout the
pandemic our kids are in school
our day cares are open our economy is
recovering in fact we have the second
fastest covid recovery in the country
our unemployment rate is 3.7
vaccines are available to anyone who
wants them and we have
more jobs available than we had people
on unemployment
i traveled the state i talked
extensively to business owners of small
to medium to large size companies and
over and over i was hearing the same
refrain that people are not showing up
for work
they have so much capacity and potential
and they can't get workforce and it
really is
one of the biggest barriers we have to
continuing to grow our economy to the
capacity that
we all know is is an opportunity
um were there any complaints so you let
me just
understand this you're basically the the
so-called federal
top-up the 300 bucks from uncle sam
you're basically ruling that
out is that correct yep we're not still
the state um
unemployment is still in place that was
in place pre-pandemic
and you know this was it served its
purpose at the beginning of the pandemic
but we're in a different spot than we
were then and we
can't continue to pay people to stay
home we have people like we have
businesses like
john deere that can't find people uh to
fill 20
an hour jobs and up i have people
turning down 30 an hour job so i mean
these are jobs that not only put
food on the table but they provide a
living wage and when you have business
after business the
the hospitality industry manufacturing
across
every single sector this was a deterrent
to getting people to show up they would
have people lined up for interviews
sometimes 30 40
and nobody would show up and i just
continue to hear it over and over
and i can't even begin to tell you how
grateful uh just
the business community has been and the
amount of emails and calls and just
conversation that we've had just
grateful that we've ended this and truly
to your point it is an
opportunity for iowans this is the long
term we're going to help them get the
skills to fill these jobs we have
a lot of as you know a lot of workforce
initiatives already in place
we're working with our businesses and
industry and our community colleges and
our high schools to help
retrain and to get kids and students the
skills that they need to fill the
multitude of jobs that we have in the
state of iowa and so
disincentive disincentivizing that is
also
not only harmful to the economy but it's
it's harmful to the individual too
there's there's dignity and work
um and and it's just it's sending the
exact wrong message that we should be
um to individuals let me just ask two
quickies you you still have
state unemployment benefits right yeah
yeah this was on top of that right so
then the second one is
does the length of the unemployment
benefits matter
also well absolutely and i mean they've
extended this until you mean are you
talking about the federal bump up
yes that was extended until september i
mean
they cut it i think it was four or 500
or six they cut it down to three but
they extended it through september
we need job we need workforce now it is
one of the biggest barriers and so
we just we made the decision to
eliminate our participation in it
and again the state unemployment
benefits are still in place and we're
going to work with iowans to help get
them the skills to fill the jobs
that's the direction we should be that's
what we should be incentivizing in iowa
we reward work we don't punish it
and that's the mindset that we have that
we and we should have across
across this country that's the kudlow
mantra kim
that's it we should reward success and
not punish it
i just love that governor kim reynolds
of the great state of iowa thank you
ma'am