INDIANAPOLIS ─ This past week, Governor Eric Holcomb confirmed his plans to stop letting Hoosiers participate in federally funded unemployment programs that have protected our economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

State Senator Karen Tallian (D─Ogden Dunes) gave the following statement in response to the Governor’s action:

“For months, we have asked the Department of Workforce Development to give us a breakdown of the sectors where there are still people out of work, their geography, age, and other demographics, so that we would have a better understanding of who is still out of work and why. They have promised to do this. We also need employer data on the skill sets needed for those unfilled jobs, and then we need to see how the two sets of data match up ─ or not.

“Instead, we have only gotten anecdotes from employers who ‘can’t get help’ and of concerns that people are staying home ‘because they can make more money on unemployment.’ We simply don’t have this information, and the DWD has been tasked with making that available. For the Governor to take this action, without facts, is simply incomprehensible.”

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