Congress Looks to Extend COVID-19 Unemployment Benefit
Congressional negotiators expect the lapsed $600 a week federal unemployment benefits to be retroactively paid from July 31 onward after lawmakers find agreement on extending them.
As Democrats and Republicans duke it out over the size of the unemployment benefits in the coming months, the program is expected to expire temporarily, until approximately the end of August for most jobless individuals. The length of the lapse in benefits will vary depending on when Congress passes the next relief package and each state’s ability to adjust to the expected changes made to the benefits program.
Multiple congressional aides told the Washington Examiner that they expect the unemployment benefits to lapse until approximately two weeks after the next coronavirus relief package is passed. The aid will likely be retroactively applied for all benefits owed from the end of July, the aides said. The benefits were similarly retroactively distributed when the program was first created by the $2.3 trillion CARES Act relief package passed in March.
The jobless benefits expiring means the weekly income of over 25 million unemployed workers will be reduced by more than two-thirds in many states over the coming weeks. . .
Some economists said that although the benefits expiring will be a strain on many, most people are saving much more now than they were before the pandemic, and thus, incomes have risen. The higher savings, along with the existing state unemployment benefits, will give many who are unemployed or partially employed a financial cushion in the coming weeks, said Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that advocates for deficit reduction. (Read more from “Congress Looks to Extend COVID-19 Unemployment Benefit” HERE)
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