Keystone Today

Pennsylvania Rep. Brad Roae (R-Meadville), majority chairman of the House Commerce Committee, offered his opinion on the possibility of Congress extending federal unemployment benefits.

According to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, both Roae and Rep. John Galloway (D-Pennsbury), the minority chairman of the House Commerce Committee, agreed that worker shortages are slowing the economic recovery in Pennsylvania. Conversely, they disagreed on a $300-a-week federal pandemic unemployment compensation benefit that ended last month.

"Pennsylvania needs to encourage people to return to the workforce, rather than depending on the government," Greg Moreland, the state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 

Rep. Brad Roae | RepRoae.com

In light of that conclusion, Roae recommended that the committee send a letter to Congress imploring them to allow the additional federal unemployment insurance to lapse as scheduled in early September. Pennsylvania did not opt out of the federal unemployment bonus. The hearings were criticized by some for a lack of testimony from organized labor, with additional hearings being proposed to remedy this, according to a report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 

According to the Official Pennsylvania Government Website, unemployment rate dropped to 6.6% in the month of July, down 0.3 percentage points from the June rate of 6.9%. This was a sharper drop compared to the national average, which fell 0.1% during that time period, but still more than a percentage point above the national average of 5.4%.