BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. John Bel Edwards has agreed to turn off federal pandemic unemployment payments at the end of July in exchange for a long-term, modest boost to the state’s jobless benefits. The governor’s office announced Wednesday that Edwards signed the bill. Republican state lawmakers agreed to support a $28 increase in Louisiana’s maximum weekly unemployment benefits starting in January. That would increase the payment to a maximum of $275 a week. But they added a provision into the legislation that only allowed the benefit hike to take effect if the Democratic governor ended the $300 supplemental federal pandemic unemployment benefit by July 31, earlier than the Sept. 6 expiration.
