More than 22,000 Georgians who were in danger of losing extended unemployment benefits beginning in June will continue to receive them thanks to last-minute action by the Legislature.
"There was some opposition, but we've done the right things for Georgians," said Sen. Hardie Davis, D-Augusta.
Davis and a bipartisan group of legislators got the work done to save the benefits less than 40 minutes before the General Assembly closed shop for the session Thursday.
Legislators had failed to tweak Georgia law to match federal eligibility guidelines for long-term unemployment, and no bill was introduced to do so during this session. There was some opposition to the extension from Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons.
Williams supported his position with studies that show that extended benefits often cause the unemployed go longer without jobs because they would rather receive federal checks rather than take jobs below wages they want.
"Studies have shown the longer and higher the unemployment benefits, the higher the unemployment rates are," he said. "Instead of incentivizing unemployment, we ought to be focusing on incentivizing employers to hire more people ."
However, both Republicans and Democrats attached an amendment fixing the discrepancy in the law onto House Bill 500, which deals with state employment readiness centers. The extended benefits, which average about $244 a week in the state, kick in for 20 weeks after a recipient has used up 79 weeks of unemployment.
Tens of thousands more residents could have lost the benefits by the end of the year, costing the state $176 million in federal unemployment dollars.
Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, had tried to get the fix attached to another bill earlier in the session without luck. She was thrilled Davis, Sen. Ronnie Chance, R-Tyrone, and others were able to get the attachment worked out in a conference committee.
"If we had failed to do this, thousands of Georgian families would have been plunged into poverty," she said.
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