Joni Ernst: “$1,500 is a lot of money for our employees.”

In 2024 alone, 10,100 million-dollar earners received nearly $97.4 million in unemployment compensation. That amounts to each being paid $9,650, roughly the cost of a new Rolex watch.

Because unemployment programs are funded primarily by taxing employers, this federal mandate is effectively a reverse Robin Hood tax that takes from struggling small businesses to give to the idle rich and self-sufficient.

From the fields in Iowa to the battlefields in Iraq, I have worked my entire life. Unlike most of my colleagues in the Senate, I am not a millionaire. I know what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck.

In Iowa, we believe in a simple rule: you plug in, you pay up.