Stay home, stay healthy, stay connected.
That was Governor Burgum’s message Wednesday as he began his daily briefing before announcing two new executive orders.
The first removes the mandatory one-week waiting period for unemployment benefits.
For every state that waives that mandate, the federal government will pay that first week.
For those who filed between March 14 and today, their first week will be retroactively paid.
“Even as someone who believes in free markets and believes in a conservative approach from a fiscal standpoint, this is different in terms of the responsibility the government has because we’ve asked businesses to close and I think we got a step up in helping out those businesses and their employees,” said Burgum.
“That’s why I think it’s important that the federal government really look, they’re looking very generously at unemployment and I hope they’ll continue to look at shoring up the unemployment insurance accounts.”
The second executive order was an amendment to the others Burgum signed in recent weeks -extending the closure of certain businesses from April 6th to April 20th.
Burgum said he will re-visit this and announce any changes on or before April 15, so that businesses can prepare.
