Mark Butler

For almost two hours Tuesday night, Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler took questions from Whitfield County residents on topics ranging from unemployment benefits to ways companies can keep employees working.

Butler spoke with Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Lynn Laughter in a conversation that was live-streamed.

“A lot of our citizens are hurting, and they have questions,” Laughter said.

Laughter said Butler received more questions than any guest she has had on the conference calls, which have been live-streamed every Tuesday and Thursday since March 26.

Butler said the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the restrictions on the economy and social activity imposed by governments to slow its spread “is unique to the point that this is the thing you’re going to compare everything else to in the future. This is that moment. There is nothing to compare it to. It is unique. It stands on itself, and everything else going forward will be judged by this moment.”

More than 22 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past four weeks.

“Since March 16, we’ve seen roughly a little over a million unemployment claims filed in basically a month’s time,” Butler said. “Somebody goes, OK, so what, a million claims? Well, let’s put that in perspective. If we go back to the worst year of the recession which was in 2009, during that year we actually saw the most claims ever filed in a one-year period. The total number of claims filed in 2009 was just a little over a million claims. So we’ve basically exceeded in a month’s time that what we did in an entire year.”

Under the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act signed into law by President Donald Trump in March, people eligible for unemployment benefits will receive an extra $600 each week they are unemployed between April 5 and July 3.

Butler said the state has relaxed the requirements for unemployment benefits during the pandemic. Previously earnings over $50 a week were deducted from unemployment benefits. Butler said that limit has been raised to $300 a week. 

“We’ve had several employers come to us and say ‘We want to keep them working, but we don’t have the workload. How can we do this?’” Butler said. “Well, basically right after you file partial claims for them, you can recall them. Say come back to work Monday, and as long as you’re putting in the wages that you’re paying them every week and it’s less than this formula — which is $300 plus whatever they qualify for in state benefits, minus $1 — they’re going to get that federal benefit of $600 a week, too.

“Now if they’re under $300 in wages, then they’re even better off because they’re going to collect all the money you pay them plus all the state benefit and the federal benefit. That’s a pretty good paycheck, and you can keep them working. You could actually use this as a tool to bring your folks back part time, so you’re not paying them as much. That helps your bottom line, but your employees are still getting the money, even more than they would have.”

Butler said unemployment benefits being paid during the pandemic won’t cause a firm’s unemployment insurance rates to increase as it might normally.

“So why wouldn’t you use the process?” Butler said. “It’s almost like free money. It’s not free money — I probably shouldn’t have used that term — but it’s all our money. We sent it to Washington, and they just sent it back to us. Why wouldn’t we put it in our economy?”

Butler pointed to the hospitality industry as one that could particularly benefit from this approach.

“Those are the businesses that I would definitely strongly suggest as they’re getting to where they can open back up, to use this unemployment we’ve got right now to help out their employees, help out their bottom line, bring them back in slowly. You can really benefit from this. It’s another tool we can use to help people get out of this hole we’re currently having to deal with.”

Butler said the Labor Department is working to process all the unemployment claims it has received.

“Our employees right now are putting in seven days a week of work, and just so you know, we’re not requiring the seven days — they’re volunteering those two days,” Butler said. “They’re also volunteering overtime; most of my employees are working anywhere from 10 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, in a lot of cases, some more, some less. We’re trying to discourage some people from working too much because we don’t want them to burn out since we don’t know how long this is going to go and that’s obviously not a sustainable model for our employees going forward.”

Before the pandemic hit, the department was processing barely 20,000 claims a month, “so you went from 20,000 a month up to a million basically overnight,” he said.

Laughter and Emergency Management Agency Director Claude Craig will host another live-streamed conversation on Thursday at 5 p.m. The guest will be Whitfield County Public Works Director DeWayne Hunt, who will talk about damage from the recent storms. The event can be viewed at the Whitfield County website (www.whitfieldcountyga.com) and at https://livestream.com/accounts/25637515/events/7960637. The call-in number will be given during the conference call. To submit questions prior to the conference call, send an email to CountyConnect@whitfieldcountyga.com.