Jobless Benefits Run Out as Trump Resists Signing
Relief Bill
Millions of Americans lost crucial unemployment
coverage, as the president continued to criticize the bill that would keep the
aid from lapsing.
Emily
Cochrane
By Emily
Cochrane
Published
Dec. 26, 2020
Updated
Dec. 27, 2020, 12:00 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON
— Millions of Americans lost their unemployment coverage on Saturday as
President Trump resisted signing a sweeping $900 billion aid package until
lawmakers more than tripled the size of relief checks, putting the fate of the
measure in limbo.
Mr. Trump’s
resistance to signing the bill risks leaving millions of unemployed Americans
without crucial benefits, jeopardizes other critical assistance for businesses
and families set to lapse at the end of the year and raises the possibility of
a government shutdown on Tuesday.
The
president blindsided lawmakers this week when he described as “a disgrace” a
relief compromise that overwhelmingly passed both chambers and was negotiated
by his own Treasury secretary. He hinted that he might veto the measure unless
lawmakers raised the bill’s $600 direct payment checks to $2,000, and Mr.
Trump, who was largely absent from negotiations over the compromise, doubled
down on that criticism on Saturday while offering little clarity on his plans.
A White House spokesman declined to indicate what the president intended to do.
“I simply
want to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in
the bill,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter Saturday, a day he continued to dedicate
many of his posts to falsehoods about the election. “Also, stop the billions of
dollars in ‘pork.’”
If the
president does not sign the $2.3 trillion spending package, which includes the
$900 billion in pandemic aid as well as funding to keep the government open
past Monday, coverage under two federal jobless programs that expanded and
extended benefits will have ended on Saturday for millions of unemployed
workers.
The
consequences of such a delay are dire, economists, policy experts and lawmakers
said, particularly as the United States’ economic recovery continues to sputter
and the pandemic ravages the country. Some warned that any resolution at this
point may be too late for families who will have lost their only lifeline
shielding them from the brunt of the pandemic’s economic toll, and will further
burden overwhelmed state unemployment agencies waiting for guidance on how to
enact the legislation.
“Foreclosures,
hunger, homelessness, suicide,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst
for the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit workers’ rights group.
“There will be very permanent things that happen to people that can’t be fixed
by a check in three weeks.”
Even if the
legislation becomes law before the end of the 116th Congress on Jan. 3, the
delay will have guaranteed a temporary lapse in unemployment benefits because
states will not be allowed to restart benefits until the first week of January.
The delay has also effectively reduced the scope of the extension and
expansions in the relief bill because they are still scheduled to end in
mid-March. A provision in the bill adding $300 a week to unemployment benefits
would now last for 10 weeks, instead of the intended 11.
“That’s a
significant amount of uncertainty for the tens of thousands of residents
throughout the state that have been dependent on all this,” said Max Reiss, a
spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut. “They’re basically being told,
‘You’re going to have to wait a little longer.’ But what they’re waiting for,
we basically don’t know. And that is an unfair position to put people in when
we were so close to the finish line days ago.”
“I’m not
sure we have a choice but to look to the new administration,” he added. “But at
that point, we’re almost a month from where we are now and that would mean a
lot of suffering for residents who are waiting for support.”
The
unsigned 5,593-page bill is now waiting at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate where
Mr. Trump is spending the holidays. In addition to providing direct payments
and reviving lapsed benefits, the legislation would allocate billions of
dollars for the distribution of vaccines and to support struggling small
businesses, schools, hospitals, airlines and transit agencies across the
country.
After
spending time with Mr. Trump on Christmas Day, Senator Lindsey Graham,
Republican of South Carolina, offered support for the president’s push for
larger direct payments in the spending legislation and for his veto of a
military policy bill this week because it did not repeal a legal shield for
social media companies. Mr. Trump has cited the absence of a repeal as one reason
for his veto, which lawmakers in both parties have said should not be addressed
in such a bill.
“Both are
reasonable demands, and I hope Congress is listening,” Mr. Graham said on
Friday.
Before Mr.
Trump’s insistence that the legislation increase relief checks to Americans,
Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, had promised direct payments could be
sent as early as next week — a timeline that was also now in jeopardy.
But many of
those receiving the jobless benefits were worried about losing them so abruptly
and what that would mean for their finances in the new year.
Hicham
Oumlil, a self-employed fashion designer in Brooklyn, said that he and his
wife, a furloughed interior designer, are both set to lose nearly $600 a week,
leaving the couple and their 7-year-old son without a source of income. Having
paid less than half of his rent each month for the past three months, Mr.
Oumlil, 48, said he feared falling deeper into debt if the relief bill did not
become law.
Lawmakers
agreed to a plan to issue stimulus payments of $600 and distribute a federal
unemployment benefit of $300 for 11 weeks. You can find more about the bill and
what’s in it for you here.
·
Will I receive another stimulus
payment? Individual adults with adjusted gross income on their 2019 tax returns
of up to $75,000 a year would receive a $600 payment, and heads of households
making up to $112,500 and a couple (or someone whose spouse died in 2020)
earning up to $150,000 a year would get twice that amount. If they have
dependent children, they would also get $600 for each child. People with
incomes just above these levels would receive a partial payment that declines
by $5 for every $100 in income.
·
When might my payment arrive?
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC that he expected the first payments
to go out before the end of the year. But it will be a while before all
eligible people receive their money.
·
Does the agreement affect
unemployment insurance? Lawmakers agreed to extend the amount of time that
people can collect unemployment benefits and restart an extra federal benefit
that is provided on top of the usual state benefit. But instead of $600 a week,
it would be $300. That would last through March 14.
·
I am behind on my rent or expect to
be soon. Will I receive any relief? The agreement would provide $25 billion to
be distributed through state and local governments to help renters who have
fallen behind. To receive assistance, households would have to meet several
conditions: Household income (for 2020) cannot exceed more than 80 percent of
the area median income; at least one household member must be at risk of
homelessness or housing instability; and individuals must qualify for
unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship — directly or
indirectly — because of the pandemic. The agreement said assistance would be
prioritized for families with lower incomes and that have been unemployed for
three months or more.
“Our
livelihoods have been shattered,” he said. “The government is showing no
leadership. I am floored by what is currently happening in Congress.”
After House
Republicans blocked a Democratic effort to unilaterally increase the $600
direct payments to $2,000 per adult, top Democrats plan to hold a roll-call
vote on the measure on Monday when the full House is present. Lawmakers could
also potentially approve a stopgap funding bill to keep the government running.
“As the
economy continues to falter, folks are hanging on by a thread and desperately
need this federal relief to continue so they can afford basics like food,
medicine, diapers, phone bills and housing,” said Representative Richard E.
Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “It
is underhanded and cruel for the president now to refuse to sign it into law
and potentially end this brutal year by inflicting even more pain and suffering
on families in need.”
The
president’s implicit threat to reject the spending package roiled Republicans
on Capitol Hill, who said Mr. Trump’s rebuke of the legislation had taken them
by surprise after they overwhelmingly supported the bill. (In fact, many of Mr.
Trump’s complaints were about measures in the government funding bills that
were in line with White House budget requests.)
The direct
payments were kept at half of the original $1,200 amount approved in the $2.2
trillion stimulus law in March, partly to accommodate a Republican reluctance
to spend more than $1 trillion, and there is little indication a majority of
Republicans would support such an increase.
“I hope the
president looks at this again and reaches that conclusion that the best thing
to do is to sign the bill,” Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, told
reporters this week. “I think that would be to the president’s advantage if we
were talking about his accomplishments rather than questioning decisions late
in the administration, but, again, Congress has very little control over what
the president can say.”
The
comments are particularly fraught for Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue
in Georgia, who are both facing runoff races in early January that will
determine control of the Senate.
The
campaign for Jon Ossoff, Mr. Perdue’s Democratic opponent, asked TV stations on
Saturday to remove one of Mr. Perdue’s ads highlighting his support for the
bill, accusing him of taking “an unwarranted victory lap on Covid-19 relief
that does not exist.”
Reporting
was contributed by Aishvarya Kavi and Michael D. Shear in Washington, and Ben
Casselman and Gillian Friedman in New York.
Emily
Cochrane is a reporter in the Washington bureau, covering Congress. She was
raised in Miami and graduated from the University of Florida. @ESCochrane
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