Former Labor Sec. Robert Reich criticized lawmakers for ending unemployment payments for millions, a move leading progressives declined to oppose

• Former Labor Sec. Robert Reich criticised lawmakers for ending enhanced unemployment benefits.
• The cut of the weekly $300 payments came on Labor Day, hitting around 9 million people.
• The White House argued it was time to end the payments, and few lawmakers opposed it.

Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich criticized lawmakers for allowing enhanced benefits for those unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic to expire as of Labor Day.

The enhanced $300 a week unemployment payments ended Monday, with about 9 million Americans affected by the benefit cut, according to the Century Foundation.

"Welcome to America, where lawmakers chose to kick 9 million jobless Americans off unemployment benefits on Labor Day, during a global pandemic," tweeted Reich.

He served as Labor secretary from 1993-1997, during the presidency of Bill Clinton, and is a prominent commentator on social media, where his Facebook posts often rank among the most popular on the site.

"Please explain to me how lawmakers justify kicking 9 million jobless Americans off unemployment benefits starting today?" he also asked.

The program would have required a congressional vote to be extended beyond Labor Day, and the Biden administration did not push to extend it.

President Joe Biden had extended the payments before, as part of his March $1.9 trillion stimulus bill designed to boost the economy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were introduced under President Donald Trump during the height of the pandemic in 2020, and renewed in December then again in March.

Republicans argued against the payments, saying they cut off potential workers for the labor market and hurt small businesses.

As the Delta variant of the coronavirus has continued to spread the US economic recovery has faltered, and hiring stalled, Reuters reported.

Biden administration officials told The New York Times Monday that they believe that new federal assistance programs and an expected hiring surge in the fall would alleviate the impact for the worst-affected.

In a tweet Monday, Jeff Stein, who covers economics for The Washington Post, noted that prominent progressives Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren had not campaigned against the ending of the payments.

He said that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised the issue with the White House, but she did not comment on the issue in her tweets or emails to supporters on Labor Day, instead focusing on encouraging union membership and discussing relief efforts for flooding in her New York City district.

Reich, who is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was been named by Time magazine as one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century.

He has long been a critic of deregulation and tax cuts as a means to economic growth, instead arguing for what he calls "boost-up" economics, involving federal investment in the economy and in workers.