Millions lose one week of jobless benefits after Trump delays signing COVID relief bill
President Donald Trump on Sunday evening signed the coronavirus relief package and spending bill into law, averting a government shutdown and providing Americans with direct assistance, but his delay also cost millions of people jobless benefits for a week, lawmakers and experts say.
The $900 billion coronavirus package, passed by Congress last week, extends both the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs, which expired Dec. 26. It also reinstates $300 in weekly unemployment benefits that had expired earlier this year.
Trump previously called the coronavirus relief package passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate a “disgrace” and temporarily refused to sign it.
Unemployment benefits can’t be paid for the week that began before the bill was signed — Trump signed the bill Sunday, the start of a new week — so jobless workers will only be able to get benefits for 10 weeks instead of 11, CNBC reported.
Around 12 million Americans lost out on those jobless benefits after the unemployment programs expired, according to a study by The Century Foundation. There were officially 10.7 million unemployed Americans as of Dec. 3, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat, told CNBC that if Trump signed the bill on Saturday, “millions of unemployed Americans would have more money in their pockets that they dearly need.”
“It was a terrible and costly stunt that achieved nothing but chaos and misery,” Beyer said.
Michele Evermore, policy expert at the National Employment Law Project, told Business Insider that it’s difficult to estimate how the delay in signing the bill will impact other jobless programs.
“I’m not entirely sure how this will be interpreted — at the very least, we lose a week of the $300,” Evermore said before Trump signed the bill. “No matter what, if he doesn’t sign, next week it goes down to 10 weeks of an extra $300.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Sunday that the state will pay $550 in unemployment benefits to jobless workers who were getting aid under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, The Seattle Times reported. The governor’s spokesperson reaffirmed that because Trump missed the Saturday deadline, there will be a weeklong lapse in PUA payments.
“In our state, we prepared for the possibility of a lapse in benefits and in anticipating it, we developed a plan for a one-time payment for those who have been receiving PUA benefits,” Inslee tweeted.
The coronavirus aid package includes $600 direct payments for millions of Americans making up to $75,000 a year but is less generous than the $2 trillion CARES Act, which provided $1,200 payments for individuals who met that same income threshold after it passed in March.
In a video posted to Twitter on Dec. 22, Trump demanded Congress increase the “ridiculously low” $600 stimulus checks included in the most recent bill to $2,000 per person or $4,000 per couple and called other provisions in the legislation “wasteful spending and much more.”
Trump doubled down on his criticism on Saturday, tweeting: “I simply want to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Sunday that he was “glad the American people will receive this much-needed assistance as our nation continues battling this pandemic.” McConnell didn’t mention Trump’s comments or the proposal to increase checks to $2,000.
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Millions lose one week of jobless benefits after Trump delays signing COVID relief bill."