<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/5/1621628309707.png" alt="Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is the target of pressure from Republicans urging her to drop federal pandemic unemployment payments. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption>Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is the target of pressure from Republicans urging her to drop federal pandemic unemployment payments. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure>By ABIGAIL CENSKY <a href="https://www.kcur.org/government/2021-05-21/republican-push-urging-kansas-governor-to-end-federal-unemployment-benefits-stumbled-this-week-but-isnt-over">Kansas News Service</a>The push by Republicans to end the $300 dollar per week additional 
federal unemployment payment in Kansas reached a peak this week with a 
letter signed by 200 groups calling on the governor to eliminate the 
benefit.But there was one problem: leaders of some of those groups say they never agreed to sign the letter.It
 was a stumble in what has been a coordinated effort by Republicans to 
urge the Democratic governor to end the payments. The GOP and business 
groups argue the larger unemployment payments are keeping workers at 
home and making it harder to fill jobs.“They’re on a mission to 
remove the weekly $300 enhanced unemployment benefit,” House Democratic 
Leader Tom Sawyer said in a statement.The fight began in earnest two weeks ago when Governor Mike Parson from neighboring Missouri <a href="https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2021-05-11/missouri-joins-other-gop-states-in-ending-covid-19-unemployment-benefits" target="_blank">announced</a> the state would opt out of the additional unemployment insurance benefits beginning June 12th.The same day, Kansas’ junior Senator Roger Marshall introduced <a href="https://www.marshall.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/GOE21561.pdf" target="_blank">a plan</a>
 to roll back federal unemployment benefits to $150 per week by the end 
of May and completely end the benefits by the end of June.“I can guarantee you,” Marshall told <a href="https://twitter.com/RogerMarshallMD/status/1392275260175695873" target="_blank">Cheddar News</a>, “(Employees are) getting paid more to stay home than go back to work.”Since then 22 states have announced they’ll end federal benefits by early July.In a <a href="https://www.moran.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6/5/6551f9b6-a5ca-40bf-9163-e8d08629411b/53FDA916E112B434F7327594E834E3C5.5.17.21-ui-letter-to-gov-kelly-final.pdf" target="_blank">letter</a>
 sent to Democratic Governor Laura Kelly this week, all of the 
Republicans in the Kansas congressional delegation argued that 
continuing federal benefits through September “provides a lucrative 
government incentive to stay home despite clear signs that the economy 
is recovering and life is trending toward normal.”The coordinated
 attempt to cajole Kelly into dropping the benefits early ran into an 
unforced error Thursday when it was revealed a letter signed by nearly 
200 groups featured organizations that had unwittingly been added by 
lower-level employees, including a local library and Greater Wichita 
YMCA.The letter had previously been touted in a statement by 
Republican leadership in the state House as evidence that Kelly 
“continues to hold Kansas back.”But Kelly has, so far, demurred to the pleas from her Republican counterparts."We have not really made a final decision on that issue. It is something we are exploring," she said to reporters last week."There is conflicting anecdotal data right now,” she said, “and I need to just study the issue.”The
 April report from the Kansas Department of Labor shows unemployment in 
the state has gone down from 3.7% in March to 3.5% in April. That’s down
 from one year ago at the height of the pandemic when it was 12.6%.“Great
 progress is being made as we are approaching pre-pandemic unemployment 
rates,” Kansas Department of Labor Secretary Amber Schultz said in a 
statement,Rep. Jason Probst, a Democrat from Hutchinson, was 
called by the Wichita YMCA, the Hutchison library and a local roofing 
company who initially didn’t know how they were added to the letter 
asking the governor to roll back federal benefits.Probst said the
 letter from the congressional delegation, powerful business groups and 
the statement from House Republicans “seems like a very coordinated 
thing to me.”He called the push to roll back federal benefits “a red herring” turned into “a political football.”Probst
 said he doesn’t doubt some local businesses are having trouble finding 
workers, but he suspects that could be a direct result of low or 
stagnant wages.“I think that's the root of the problem,” he said. “I don't think it's federal benefits.”Jeremy
 Hill, the director of the Center for Economic Development and Business 
Research at Wichita State University, said Kansas does have a wage 
problem.“Kansas has had a problem over the last decade,” Hill 
said, “where wages on average were not increasing at the rate of the 
national level.”Hill said that caused some people to move out of 
state, and the base of available workers became smaller, which made for a
 tight labor market even before the COVID-19 pandemic.Now, there 
are multiple factors that complicate whether employers are able to fill 
jobs and whether employees are able to find a job that fits the demands 
and expenses of their lifestyle.Unlike the Great Recession, 
workers displaced from jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic aren’t 
returning to the same jobs. Even if they’re able to return to work, they
 may be limited by caretaking or lack of childcare.“We haven't 
added a lot of jobs from a year ago,” he said. “But we've added a lot 
more people in the labor market looking for a job than a year ago.”Abigail Censky is the political reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter<a href="https://twitter.com/AbigailCensky" target="_blank"> </a><a href="https://twitter.com/AbigailCensky" target="_blank">@AbigailCensky</a> or email her at abigailcensky@kcur.org.

GOP push to end federal unemployment benefits stumbled, but isn't over