The Unemployed Win Another Battle
Maryland judge issues injunction which keeps federal jobless benefits flowing -- over Republican governor's objections
The population of unemployed workers in about half of the country have been having a tougher time lately, as Republican governors nationwide have issued orders aimed at cutting the flow of supplemental federal benefits to the jobless in their states.
However, those beleaguered out-of-work Americans won another victory Tuesday, when a judge in Maryland issued an injunction to force the state government to continue to allow the collection of federal benefits — over the objections of Gov Larry Hogan (R).
While he had been a frequent antagonist of former president Donald Trump's, and a Republican governor of an overwhelmingly Democratic state, Hogan was quick to fall in line with other GOP governors also blocking the federal supplemental benefits, which come to $300 per week.
In the cases of the long-term unemployed and so-called “gig workers,” the federal benefits are the only benefits available to them.
Republicans have been saying that the federal benefits are too generous, and — without much empirical evidence — blame a worker shortage on those benefits.
Over the Independence Day weekend, Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill issued a temporary restraining order, which Hogan appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. The intermediate appellate court rejected the governor’s argument. Then Hogan appealed to the state’s highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals, but Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera declined the administration’s request to hear the case.
However, in an afternoon statement Tuesday, Hogan spokesman Michael Ricci said the administration fundamentally disagreed with the judge’s decision but will not file an appeal.
That should allow Maryland's jobless population guaranteed access to the federal benefits until they expire by statute in September.
However, beginning next week, work search requirements for federal program beneficiaries will go into effect, and claimants will have to search for work using the Maryland Workforce Exchange, according to the governor’s office.
Read the preliminary injunction.
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