Was it smart for states to cut UI benefits?

Last year about half of the states eliminated the supplemental unemployment benefit program that was launched in reaction to the pandemic.  The logic in these states, most of which had Republican governors or legislatures, was that the extra UI benefits discouraged job search.  

New research by a team of economists, including a Harvard Business School professor, indicates that only 20 percent of the unemployed workers were employed three months later.  More alarmingly, the cuts in UI benefits led to reduced spending in these states.  The math is pretty simple.  There were 1.1m newly employed workers who collectively made $900m in the states that cut benefits.  At the same time there were 3m unemployed workers who did not get to collect $7.6b in benefits.  The overall result is less spending in those states, which in turn no doubt led to reduced employment.