One of the most bold yet sensible ideas to address the twin crises America faces to its health and economy is coming from, of all sources, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. The Republican junior senator wants government to essentially pay businesses to keep their employees on the payroll even as they shelter at home — a logical alternative to the approach thus far, which has been primarily to aid those employees after they’re laid off.
This newspaper has leveled plenty of criticism at Hawley for his stances on health care, presidential oversight and other issues, but this idea is a sound one that deserves strong consideration.
America’s unprecedented attempt to control a pandemic by shuttering businesses across the nation and sending their employees home appears to be working, with new coronavirus cases and fatalities leveling off in some hot spots. The most dire predictions of the total death toll have been adjusted downward.
But the economic costs have been tremendous. As businesses have been forced to scale back services or close completely, their employees have swelled unemployment rolls beyond anything in our lifetimes. Unemployment application figures indicate that more than 22 million Americans have been put out of work in the past month — more than twice the job losses that were seen during two years of the last recession. The unemployment rate is now on a trajectory to exceed 17%, the worst since the Great Depression, and it will almost certainly continue to climb.
The government has already tried emergency packages that have been appropriately sized but inefficient. Much of the spending, including individual stimulus payments and expanded unemployment benefits, are focused on responding to joblessness rather than preventing it. A forgivable loan program intended to incentivize businesses to keep workers on has been hampered by its own complexity.
What Hawley proposes is, essentially, to prevent that separation of employer and employee in the first place (or retroactively, in cases where it’s already happened) by effectively paying the businesses, via payroll-tax rebates, to keep their workers on the payroll at 80% of their previous pay, while they’re sheltering at home rather than working.
The government will have to continue spending to make those employees whole anyway. Why not do it through the existing employment structures to minimize the disruption? Those who get their health insurance through work would still get it, and they wouldn’t be adding to the unemployment rolls. When the pandemic is over, businesses wouldn’t have to go through the cumbersome process of rehiring. They could just unlock the doors and call in the employees.
Senate Republican leaders are increasingly acknowledging that more epic spending will be needed to get Americans through this. Those leaders should strongly consider an idea that comes from their own ranks — an idea that supports not just individual workers and individual businesses but keeps them together — and ready to get back to business.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
