HARRISBURG — Republican gubernatorial candidate and state Attorney General Tom Corbett charged Friday that some Pennsylvanians would rather stay home and collect unemployment checks than go back to work — provoking angry responses from his opponent and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

"The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there," Corbett a Harrisburg radio station during a campaign visit to businesses in Elizabethtown, a college community about 20 miles southeast of the capital.

Corbett said he has heard similar complaints from business owners across the state.

"One of the individuals said, 'I can't get workers. People don't want to come back to work while they still have unemployment.' ... They're literally telling him 'I'll come back to work when unemployment runs out,"' Corbett said. "That's becoming a problem."

The comments ignited one of the hottest moments yet in a languid campaign.

"I don't know what world Tom Corbett is living in," said Democratic nominee Dan Onorato, the elected chief executive of Allegheny County. "Our economy is struggling, families in Pennsylvania are hurting, and Harrisburg insiders like Tom Corbett aren't doing anything to help them."

State AFL-CIO President Richard Bloomingdale was astonished by Corbett's remarks, the labor federation said.

"Unemployed workers would rather be working, feeding their families and paying the mortgage than living with the uncertainty of not having a job, earning less than half their wages and going without health care and pensions," Bloomingdale said, noting more than 25,000 people are jobless in Lancaster County, which takes in Elizabethtown.

About 590,000 Pennsylvanians are currently unemployed, the federation said.

Statewide unemployment in May — the most recent figure — was 9.1 percent, according to the state Labor and Industry Department.