As public health officials warned Friday that the coronavirus posed new risks for parts of the Midwest and South, the improved federal payments that helped prevent financial ruin for millions of unemployed Americans would expire, leaving the safety nets threadbare. offered by individual states to catch them.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the federal government has added $ 600 to weekly unemployment checks sent in by states. That increase ends this week, and with Congress still haggling over next steps, most states won’t be able to offer nearly as much.
Additional federal aid helped keep Wally Wendt and his family afloat.
Wendt, 54, of Everett, Washington, was fired from the fitness company where he worked for 31 years. The additional federal benefits helped him pay off a loan to put a new roof on his house that he took out before the virus struck and the economy collapsed.
The money also helps her daughter, who lost her job at a restaurant. With the boost, you can pay for diapers, baby formula, rent, and utilities. Without her, Wendt said, her daughter and two children could move in with him.
“Politicians need to line their ducks up,” Wendt said. “The pressure is not on them, it is on all of us manual workers who are fighting to earn a living.”
In addition to the final $ 600 payments, federal eviction protections will also expire.
Standard unemployment benefits often leave recipients with poverty-level incomes, but they will surely continue, even as states struggle with declining unemployment trust funds.
Each state offers assistance to at least some unemployed workers based on a portion of their previous earnings. Maximum amounts vary widely, from $ 235 per week in Mississippi to $ 1,234 in Massachusetts. Benefits are available for as little as six weeks in Georgia and up to 28 weeks in Montana. Most states normally cut people off after 26 weeks.
The possible loss of earnings comes at a time of growing pessimism about job prospects. Nearly half of Americans whose families experienced layoffs during the pandemic now believe those jobs are lost forever, according to a new survey by the Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Research Center.
In addition to the economic damage of the pandemic, the virus itself threatens to overwhelm parts of the country that have been relatively unscathed.
Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, warned in a television interview that the increase in cases in the south and southwest could reach the north.
“What started out as a southern and western epidemic is beginning to move toward the east coast, toward Tennessee, Arkansas, toward Missouri, through Colorado,” Birx told NBC’s “Today” show. He implored people to wear masks, wash their hands, and stay at least six feet away.
In Missouri, confirmed cases have increased sharply since Republican Governor Mike Parson allowed the state to reopen in mid-June. The number of positive tests set a record three days in a row this week.
Birx said health professionals have “called up the next set of cities” where they see early warning signs because if those cities make changes now “they will not become a Phoenix.” Arizona’s big capital has suffered a severe outbreak, though Birx said Friday that the federal government was seeing an encouraging decline in positive test results there and in San Antonio, which, like much of Texas, has been hit hard. .
The Vermont governor, where cases have been among the lowest in the country, responded Friday by issuing an order requiring people to wear masks in public. “We’re still in great shape, but it’s time to get ready,” said Republican Governor Phil Scott.
Also on Friday, McDonald’s announced that it would soon begin requiring masks at its restaurants.
The masks remain a national flash point. Green Bay, Wisconsin police were investigating death threats against city elected officials for a new mandate that required covering their faces in public buildings. The Indiana governor removed a planned criminal sanction from the state face mask mandate he signed on Friday after objections from many law enforcement officials and some conservative lawmakers.
Sunbelt states that have been under siege in recent weeks are still struggling. Florida, for example, reported 135 new deaths and 12,000 new cases, bringing its total number of identified infections to more than 400,000. In California, officials reported a record 159 deaths on Friday, with a total death toll of around 8,200. California now has more than 435,000 confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Washington were negotiating a new coronavirus relief bill as state and local governments, schools, businesses, and others pushed for a new dose of aid. Democrats in Congress have tried to keep the extra $ 600 in unemployment checks. Republicans who control the Senate have proposed benefits that are worth 70% of what people did before.
The weekly $ 600 bonus is technically slated to expire on July 31, but the limit is effectively Saturday, due to how states process payments.
Other aspects of the enhanced benefits will continue, including coverage for some self-employed and self-employed who are generally not eligible for unemployment, as well as a 13-week extension of regular payments that the federal government is helping to subsidize.
Critics noted that the additional cash payments meant that many workers received more for not working than for working, a possible disincentive to return to work. Supporters saw it as an acknowledgment that wages were too low and said the extra money was an opportunity for workers to accumulate a mattress should they remain unemployed after benefits expire.
The federal government is offering interest-free loans to states that deplete their unemployment insurance trust funds, and 10 states have received them so far. But paying the United States after a crisis can prevent states from accumulating reserves. Pennsylvania just finished paying off its loans from the Great Recession.
Hawaii is a state that is preserving some of the momentum, increasing unemployment checks by $ 100 a week for the rest of the year. To pay for it, the tourism-dependent state is using almost a fifth of its primary pot of federal aid for the coronavirus.
Georgia is allowing people to earn more from part-time jobs while still receiving unemployment benefits. In most places, however, similar measures have not been taken.
The Democratic-controlled New Hampshire Legislature passed a bill to increase the maximum payment by $ 100 per week, to $ 527. Republican Governor Chris Sununu vetoed it, saying some of the details may have jeopardized federal funds.
In Arizona, Democrats also lobbied to add $ 100 to the maximum weekly benefit of $ 240, but Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, deferred to Congress.
