President Biden: Unemployment Benefits set to Expire September 6

"The temporary $300 boost in benefits will expire on September 6th, as planned," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh wrote in a letter to Senate committee leaders Thursday. 

"As President Biden has said, the boost was always intended to be temporary and it is appropriate for that benefit boost to expire."

President Joe Biden's administration will not reinstate enhanced weekly unemployment benefits, but instead urged states and cities that want to continue the extra payments to use their share of COVID-19 rescue funds.

Republican governors who refused their share of the $350 billion in direct aid from the American Rescue Plan, which was passed by Congress in March of 2021, called the "extra money" -a barrier- to getting people back to work.

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In Columbus, the deadline to submit proof of documentation to receive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) expired on August 14.

Georgia boasts that unemployment statewide has returned to "pre-pandemic" levels.

As of August 3rd, 2021, U.S. unemployment rates were at a bit more than 11-percent and Muscogee County unemployment rates were at a bit more than 10-percent. In November of 2020, Muscogee County's unemployment rate was reported at 6.8% on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not adjusted for seasonal variances. 

In November of 2019, the Georgia Recorder reported Georgia's unemployment rate at a record low of 2.8% and a record high in April of that same year at 12.3%, which likely casts serious doubt that the unemployment levels in Georgia are at pre-pandemic levels.