A.G. Gancarski
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott blamed the White House for a weak jobs report in an interview Monday, saying the “horrible” jobs numbers are the result of people making more on unemployment than they would if they worked.
Scott made the comments on the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” speaking just minutes after President Joe Biden attempted to contextualize a month in which jobs created fell far short of projections.
“If he sits here and believes that people that get paid more money not to work are going to jump at a job, so many people aren’t,” Scott said.
Scott said he had pressed the U.S. Department of Labor in letters to the Secretary and the Inspector General targeting what a press release called “fraud and abuse.”
“I asked the Department of Labor, Secretary of Labor, are you enforcing the law if people are offered a job that they’re not staying at home,” Scott said.
Businesses can’t “staff up,” Scott said, “because people are making more money and don’t want to come back to work.”
“It’s a horrible jobs number, and it’s a horrible jobs number because of what the Biden agenda is,” Scott said.
Scott doubled down on his assertion that it’s “absurd” to pay enhanced unemployment benefits when asked about people being scared to return to work due to virus concerns.
“Gosh, people are making more money not to work,” Scott said, paraphrasing frustrated business owners.
“You can’t pay people more not to work than to work,” Scott said, grousing again that the Labor Secretary “won’t even tell me he’s enforcing the law.”
“I want people who need help to get help, but gosh, you can’t have a country where everything is free,” Scott said. “Nobody can pay for this.”
Biden said Monday in remarks from the White House that people getting unemployment “can’t refuse a suitable job” if offered, adding that there’s not much “evidence” that “generous unemployment benefits” are keeping people out of the workforce.
“People will come back to work if they’re paid a decent wage,” Biden said Monday.
Scott first expressed concerns a year ago that federally enhanced unemployment payouts posed a “big problem” and nothing has changed his mind since.
It’s no surprise that @JoeBiden is in denial and doesn’t understand how the economy actually works. pic.twitter.com/zg683YUXKc
— Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) May 10, 2021
