Senators launch bipartisan effort to end unemployment payments for 'jobless millionaires'

A bipartisan effort is underway in the Senate to end what lawmakers are calling unemployment payments for "jobless millionaires."

"Nearly 15,000 people who made $1 million or more last year were paid over $200 million in jobless assistance," according to statement released Thursday on the effort by bill co-sponsor Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst

The bill, titled Ending Unemployment Payments to Jobless Millionaires Act of 2023, is also sponsored by Sens. Jon Tester, D-Montana, and Mike Braun, R-Indiana.

The measure, if passed and signed into law, would end Unemployment Insurance (UI) compensation to anyone earning $1 million or more, despite having lost a job.

Utah GOP Rep. John Curtis is introduced a companion bill in the House.

In total, 14,951 millionaires collected $213.3 million in unemployment compensation in 2022, according to IRS figures cited by the lawmakers. The amount includes nearly $4 million paid to over 300 multi-millionaires earning $10 million or more.

Each of the unemployed millionaires was paid about $14,265, on average, and in the previous two years, nearly half a billion dollars in jobless benefits have been paid to out-of-work millionaires, the lawmakers also say.

“Bah humbug! to this reverse-millionaires tax taking money out of the paychecks of hardworking Americans to pay the wealthy not to work," Ernst said. "Ebenezer Scrooge certainly never would have learned the meaning of Christmas if he was visited by Washington bureaucrats instead of three ghosts.