Schumer: Idea that $600 unemployment benefit keeps workers away from jobs 'belittles the American people'

Senate Minority Leader Charles SchumerChuck SchumerPelosi, Schumer slam Trump executive orders, call for GOP to come back to negotiating table Sunday shows preview: White House, congressional Democrats unable to breach stalemate over coronavirus relief Postal Service says it lost .2 billion over three-month period MORE (D-N.Y.) said Sunday the idea that the now-expired $600 per week enhanced unemployment benefit disincentivizes workers from returning to jobs “belittles the American people.”

“Americans want to work, but with 10-11 percent unemployment, you can’t find a job and people shouldn’t be given a pay cut,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

President TrumpDonald John TrumpDeWine tests negative for coronavirus a second time Several GOP lawmakers express concern over Trump executive orders Beirut aftermath poses test for US aid to frustrating ally MORE and a number of Republicans, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who has been a key negotiator on coronavirus relief legislation, have argued that the extra $600 benefit, while necessary at the beginning of the pandemic, had become an incentive for Americans to stay home rather than returning to work.

One of the coronavirus executive orders signed by Trump on Saturday reduces the temporary benefit to an extra $400 per week, with states on the hook to pay $100 of that amount, through the end of the year.

Schumer on Sunday slammed the order as “an unworkable plan.”

“Most states will take months to implement it, because it’s brand new, it’s sort of put together with spit and paste, and many states, because they have to chip in $100 and they don’t have money won’t do it,” Schumer said. “And to boot it depletes the hurricane trust fund to defer this money, to pay for this, when we’re at the height of hurricane season.”

Schumer echoed his previous statement in calling all four executive orders “unworkable, weak and far too narrow.”

“The event at the country club is just what Trump does, a big show but it doesn’t do anything,” he added.

The other three orders Trump signed at his country club in Bedminster, N.J., include payroll tax and student loan payments deferrals and one that aims to prevent evictions, though it does not explicitly halt them.

“As the American people look at these executive orders, they’ll see they don’t come close to doing the job in two ways, one in what’s proposed, and second in what’s left out,” Schumer said Sunday.