#Kudlow: Extra $600 in unemployment a ‘disincentive’ to return to work

Larry Kudlow, a senior economic adviser to President Trump, said the extra $600 added to unemployment benefits in response to the coronavirus pandemic will end in July because it is a “disincentive” to getting people back to work.

“The $600 plus-up that’s above the state unemployment benefits they will continue to receive is in effect a disincentive. I mean, we’re paying people not to work. It’s better than their salaries would get,” Kudlow said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“That might have worked for the first couple of months. It will end in late July,” Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, added.

The weekly boost to the unemployment checks included in the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill, which Trump signed into law in March, will expire on July 31.

Kudlow said the Trump administration is looking at other alternatives, including a bonus for “returning to work, but it will not be as large, and it will create an incentive to work.”

He said the economy is at a turning point following the months-long lockdown because of the pandemic.

“I think we are on our way. We are reopening, businesses are coming back and therefore jobs are coming back,” Kudlow said. “We don’t want to interfere with that process.”

Host Jake Tapper pressed Kudlow about the contention that the checks are a disincentive and suggested that many of the jobs lost will not be coming back.

“I think that’s a fair point. I personally agree with you. I think people want to go back to work. I think they welcome the reopening of the economy. I think they’re anxious to get out and about,” Kudlow said.