Georgia’s Reactionary Ruling Class Needs to Be Toppled
In Georgia, Republicans have leaned on voter suppression to push their reactionary agenda for years — and now they’re withholding unemployment benefits for pandemic-wracked workers. The only way to stop their pillaging is for poor and working-class Georgians to unite across racial lines, to finally win the economic and social rights they deserve.
Georgia governor Brian Kemp speaks during a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia. (Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images)
Mark Butler, Georgia’s state labor commissioner, had one job during the coronavirus pandemic: issue unemployment insurance (UI) benefits in a timely fashion. He’s failed miserably.
Not only has Butler’s office summarily rejected the vast majority of UI claims filed during COVID-19 — denying claimants much-needed relief, including an extra $600 a week under the federal CARES Act — it has failed to pay out benefits to tens of thousands of Georgians whose claims have already been approved.
Butler’s callous neglect has left an already impoverished state on the brink of disaster. The CARES Act eviction moratorium ended July 24, and many Georgians — some of them still awaiting their UI checks — are now being forcibly removed from their homes. Amid a devastating pandemic, the state is turning poor and working-class people out on the street, creating a ticking time bomb of super-spreader proportions.
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