Lake County Gazette

State Rep. Martin McLaughlin (R-Lake Barrington) is urging Illinois residents to get back to work as a way to help rebuild communities after the COVID-19 crisis.

“As we emerge from COVID-19-ordered shutdowns and face a new, unexpected challenge of finding a workforce to fill the jobs necessary to assist our local businesses in reopening, I have, like most of you, a lot of Main Street communities in my district with small business owners who are trying to reopen fully,” McLaughlin recently shared. “They've struggled and saved and unfortunately many will not open again. But for those that have, we need to support them now.”

McLaughlin points to his own district as a glaring example of what he insists he sees happening in too many communities across the state.

“My district has manufacturing companies, restaurants, retailers that are all having a similar problem,” he said. “They've got great jobs available at living wages and limited to no applicants.”

McLaughlin seethes it’s not hard to figure out why.

“Why could it be that we've created a disincentive to work for many in Illinois?” he said. “We need to address the continuing benefit payments that are keeping our Illinois workforce away from these great jobs and are also making businesses and more importantly, investors in those businesses wary of committing capital in Illinois.”

As a solution, McLaughlin said he is asking Gov. J.B. Pritzker to pull the plug on the state’s participation in the federal pandemic related unemployment benefit program in June rather than waiting until September.

“The governor and this body need to emphasize that prioritizing work over supplements or subsidies needs to occur,” he said. “Now we need to demand that the recipients of continuing benefits must seek employment. There are over 120,000 jobs available currently in Illinois, many with living wages, benefits and great opportunities. Enhancing the continued benefit payments are incentivizing those individuals to stay home. We need to rescind the executive order that waives the requirement that a person must be able and available and actively seeking employment to qualify for these benefits."

Even as at least 16 other states have already elected to opt-out of federal unemployment programs before their official expiration on Labor Day, Pritzker has indicated he has no plans to do so here in Illinois.

“There are circumstances as well where people are afraid to go back to work and they are staying out of the workforce or at least staying away from taking a new job,” he said.