Hi everyone, this is Dr. Nitin Chhoda with Ignition Time. In this video, i'm
actually going to set the record straight,
is it $400 a week or is it $300 a week? There's been a lot of confusion
and I believe this was actually clarified in one of my videos but i'm
going to clarify it again so that all my viewers and subscribers
are clear about this. I'm also going to answer a very very important question
that was in the comments which wine am I drinking?
It is a Roscato. This is a sweet red wine from Georgia. It's from the country
Georgia not from you know, not from our Georgia. I'll put it right there
and it's actually not very expensive. I got it from Wegmans.
I believe it was under 15 bucks. So it's a it's a very inexpensive and it's a
sweet red wine and it's something I enjoy at the end of
the day. So now let's get down to business.
The extra $400 week unemployment benefit extension,
the White House actually changed their position on it since they
since they essentially launched it with the President's executive order
and it and they said that the state match was optional. So basically
what happened was about a week ago the US department of labor sent a letter to
state agencies giving them some guidelines about this
about the whole lost wages assistance program. But the most important paragraph
said that eligible Americans may only receive a lost wages assistance program
of $300 per week, not the $400 a week that
President Trump had sort of issued in his memorandum. So there has been a
lot of confusion about is it $400 a week or is
it three is it $300 a week? Again, the bottom line is
the state match is optional and even though the President announced that the
lost wages assistance program would pay out $400 a
week it's very clear that the states would have had to
include or chip in a $100 a week. And he said
i'm taking action to provide an extra $400
a week in expanded benefits, that's what the President has said. But the fact is
that the White House offered multiple different interpretations of this in the
following days. So there was actually bipartisan blowback
from both sides, from republicans and democrats
to the state mandated requirement of $100.
So essentially what happened was the White House changed and
they evolved their positions. So state budget shortfalls are expected to
reach $555 billion dollars according to the center
on budget and policy priorities. And many states said that funding the extra $100
was going to be impossible. So as a result, the White House officials
actually started tweaking the lost wages assistance program and
just a few days ago the White House national economic
director Larry Kudlow suggested he actually said that in an interview that
the states would not have to put up incremental funds in
order for unemployed americans to get the $300
weekly benefit. He said and I quote "we modified slightly
the mechanics of the deal." That doesn't seem like a slight modification to me
but never mind. And by tuesday evening at
least five contradictory versions, this is a few
days ago, there were multiple contradictory versions of
what was sort of what states had to do
from as far as the White House's position was concerned
and basically again there was a lot of confusion and for
individuals who had not received any federal unemployment benefits for
almost three weeks as well as states who had to who expected to now say stand up
and administer the lost wages assistance program
this was an extremely frustrating time. So what happened was the department of
labor did end up providing specific guidelines on how the
lost wages assistance program would work and it said it would help
states with technical assistance to administer the program
and so basically what happened was the department of labor announced
that it it that then in a memorandum that
states would be relieved of the obligation to provide an
incremental 100 in unemployment benefits in order to receive the 300
federal contribution and i'm i'm reading a letter now from the u.s department of
labor it says and i quote states may count funds that are already
used to provide regular state ui payments
toward the state match so in other words it's not the state
payment plus the hundred dollars which by the way was exactly what the
president implied in his press briefing and in the
executive order but since then now the new now the new guideline is uh
the new evolved position is states may count
funds that are already used to provide regular state ui payments
toward the state match if they choose to do so eligible claimants will receive
an lwa lost wages assistance payment of 300
from the federal government in addition to their weekly benefit amount so
this was a letter from the us department of labor and the letter also noted that
states may meet the 100 per week state match with the regular payments
and it acknowledges that if states do go down this route
i quote eligible claimants will only receive
an lwa payment of 300 in addition to their weekly benefit amount now i have
done another video where i went into a lot more detail
about which states are adopting the program which states have applied
at the point at the time i'm recording this video we have 10 states that are
approved and over 10 states that are pending
right now and there are only a small number of states that will pay the full
400 in fact it's just four states that will
pay the full 400 most of the other states across the
country have either not applied or if they've applied they said yep you
know we're just going to give you 300 because that's all that's all we can do
we don't have the extra hundred dollars either because they ran out of the money
or because the money has already been earmarked for the expenses you you have
to take into consideration my viewers and
subscribers that states have to spend money
on k-12 education they have to spend money on all sorts of services
they have to spend money on health care they have to spend money on all sorts of
facilities to the seniors and disabled so
the unemployment insurance payment is one of many many many many expenses
that states have i have done another video i do think it's important for us
to understand how states allocate their money so i have done another video on
how states allocate money how states get money and spend money so
you want to check that out i've also done another video on how the federal
government gets money and spends money in case you're a nerd like me and you
want to get into stuff like that but i think it is
important to understand that the state has many other expenses so
in short the department of labor made it clear that states could provide the
hundred dollars in incremental funds but that it is not mandatory in reality
this means that most individuals should only expect
about 300 dollars in per week for for the duration of the
lost wages assistance program and not count on not depend on the extra
hundred dollars from states given the state's budgetary
problem so uh according to uh jack brewster from
forbes no state has well i take that back three states
have said that they will that they will pay the
extra hundred dollars so that's where things
stand right now and or just to just so that my viewers and subscribers know
at the time i'm recording this three states intend to pay
the entire 400 in weekly unemployment benefits not 400
i have covered that in other videos as well so this was all like i said as a
result of all the bipartisan of all the bipartisan problems that that
existed or that arose as a result of the
implementation of this just to be clear some states have actually declined aid
a few states like south dakota and new york new york
have declined to participate turning down the extra federal unemployment
benefits south dakota governor issued a statement
last week declining to participate in the lwa program
my administration is this is what the south dakota governor said my
administration is very grateful for the additional flexibility that this effort
would have provided but south dakota is in the fortunate
position of not needing to accept it south dakota's economy having never been
shut down has recovered nearly 80 percent of our job losses
like i mentioned other states have submitted have submitted the
applications and three states aim to provide workers with the full
400 benefits one state considered four hundred dollars
one other state but ultimately settled on three hundred dollars so we have
montana which is going to be paying the full 400
montana actually was the eighth state to receive approval it's it plans to pay
the full 400 and unemployment payments will range
from six from 560 to 950 according to the associated press
in west virginia they also plan to contribute the extra 100
and pay unemployed workers the full 400 weekly benefit governor jim justice said
west virginia is going to pay it we're gonna we're going to pay it and
very willingly we're going to pay it and west virginia that's basically what
west virginia is doing and governor justice indicated that
paying the extra hundred dollars per week would cost the state 26 million
a week but he said at the end of the day we'll figure it out in kentucky
on just a couple days ago governor andy bishop announced his intention to submit
an application for the full 400 a week and he said while there's
still some uncertainty in this new program is just too important to get
these dollars out to families and when he was asked
why he decided to use state funds and provide the full 400 a week in other
words do we have the money he said the hundred dollars was critically
important for recipients and he said we know how this money
moves through the economy so basically that's what's happening in the state of
kentucky now north carolina actually considered
400 but it's interesting to know that they settled at three hundred dollars
because they have some of the worst jobless benefits or some of the i should
say lowest payouts amongst all states they provide benefits
for only 12 weeks in most cases instead of 26 weeks or
other states allocate so governor roy cooper
said that he supported north carolina providing an extra 100
so that the unemployed workers would receive the full uh would receive the
full 400 week however state senator chuck edwards
who co-chairs the general the general assembly joint legislator
oversight uh basically wasn't too enthusiastic about paying
the full 400 so uh on just yesterday north carolina's division of
unemployment security that's des announced that it would only be paying
the 300 federal unemployment benefit they made the decision after learning
the money from the state's unemployment insurance fund
could not be used to pay the extra 100 state match so basically here's the
bottom line most states applying for funding under
the enhanced uh unemployment benefit program are only paying the 300
federal contribution so for all intents and purposes
we can refer to it as a 300 a week program instead of the 400
week program a few states have declined to participate altogether but montana
west virginia and kentucky are going uh you know going the distance
and paying the full 400 that's it everybody thank you so much
for watching my name is dr nitin choda with ignition time if you learn
something new please consider clicking like
please subscribe please enable notifications so you get instant updates
from us going forward i really appreciate you watching
if you don't know anything about me my name is dr nitin choda i live the
american dream i've had the fortune the honor the privilege of essentially
building my own american success story and i want to do the same for you i'm
hoping to guide you to lead you forward if you want to get alerts from us get
your cell phone out send a text message with the word ignition or with the word
time 270 000. that's 7000 and you'll get instant
alerts from us going forward you can also get added to our email list
and you can opt out of the sms list or the email list at any point in time we
release videos at 2 p.m east coast time most days of the week
thank you so much for watching i'll see you in the next episode of ignition time
take care bye