Minimum Wage Fact Sheets Shared Work, Shared Benefits: Why Expanding Work Sharing Would Pay Off for Employees, Employers, and Pennsylvania in the COVID Recession and Beyond
- October 14, 2020
- Keystone Research Center
- Mary Madsen and Stephen Herzenberg
Expanding Pennsylvania’s use of work-sharing—reduced work hours and pay combined with partial unemployment benefits so that workers experience a smaller income loss—could be instrumental in reducing unemployment during the current recession and accelerating a safe return to fuller employment. Such expansion would cost the state little or nothing because of 100% federal reimbursement for work-sharing unemployment benefits through at least December 31, 2020, and nearly $4 million in grants available to Pennsylvania through 2023. This brief details executive and administrative actions that Pennsylvania could take to expand work sharing and mitigate the damage of the current recession to workers and families, businesses, and the state’s economy.