Republicans are doing their best to push people off of unemployment, with governors reopening states so that the most vulnerable workers are forced back into unsafe workplaces. But the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz write that the extra $600 in unemployment insurance has been the best economic response to coronavirus—and it needs to be extended.

“Money spent on continuing crucial unemployment insurance provisions will help avoid a prolonged period of high unemployment that will do far more serious and persistent damage to the economy,” they write. “In the last six weeks, close to 30 million workers have applied for unemployment insurance. It’s worth noting as a point of comparison that those 30 million workers would need to be provided an extra $1,400 per week for a year to match the fiscal size of the 2017 tax cuts aimed at corporations and the rich.”

This blog originally appeared on Daily Kos on May 9, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Laura Clawson has been a Daily Kos contributing editor since December 2006. Full-time staff since 2011, currently assistant managing editor.