Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans in limbo as Trump rages

Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet would expire at midnight Saturday (6 AM Sunday NZT) unless President Donald Trump signed a Covid relief and spending bill from end of the year that had been considered a closed deal before his sudden objections.

Trump’s refusal to sign the bipartisan package as he calls for larger Covid aid checks and complains about “hog” spending could also force a shutdown of the federal government when the money runs out at 12:01 on Tuesday ( local time) in the middle of a pandemic.

“It’s a game of chess and we’re pawns,” said Lanetris Haines, a single, self-employed mother of three in South Bend, Indiana, who could lose her weekly $ 129 (NZ $ 170) unemployment benefit unless Trump signs. the package in law or succeeds in its unlikely pursuit of change.

Washington has been reeling since Trump threw the package into limbo after it had already won wide approval in both houses of Congress and after the White House assured Republican leaders that Trump would support it.

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Instead, he has attacked the bill’s plan to provide $ 600 (NZ $ 842) Covid relief checks to most Americans, insisting that it should be $ 2000 (NZ $ 2808). House Republicans quickly rejected that idea during a rare Christmas Eve session. But Trump has not been swayed.

“I just want our great people to get $ 2000, instead of the measly $ 600 that’s now on the bill,” Trump tweeted Saturday from Palm Beach, where he spends the holidays. “Plus, stop the billions of dollars in ‘pork’.”

President-elect Joe Biden called on Trump to sign the bill immediately, as two federal programs that provide unemployment assistance are set to expire on Saturday.

“It’s the day after Christmas, and millions of families don’t know if they’ll be able to make ends meet due to President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign a financial aid bill passed by Congress with an overwhelming bipartisan majority,” Biden it said in a statement.

He accused Trump of an “abdication of responsibility” that has “devastating consequences.”

“I’ve been talking to people who are afraid they will be thrown out of their homes over the Christmas break, and it still could be if we don’t sign this bill,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan. Democrat.

Lauren Bauer, an economics fellow at the Brookings Institution, has estimated that 11 million people would lose aid from the programs immediately without additional aid; Millions more would exhaust other unemployment benefits in a few weeks.

Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and a senior member of the Century Foundation think tank, said the number may be closer to 14 million because unemployment has skyrocketed since Thanksgiving.

“All these people and their families will suffer if Trump doesn’t sign the damn bill,” Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Liberal Economic Policy Institute, tweeted Wednesday. However, he said the unemployed could be paid retroactively if the bill is finally signed.

How and when people are affected by the lapse depends on the state they live in, the program they are based on, and when they applied for benefits. In some states, people with regular unemployment insurance could continue to receive payments under a program that extends benefits when the unemployment rate exceeds a certain threshold, Stettner said.

Roughly 9.5 million people, however, rely on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program that expires in full on Saturday. That program made unemployment insurance available to the self-employed, gig workers, and others who are not normally eligible. After receiving their last check, those beneficiaries will not be able to apply for more help starting Monday, Stettner said.

While payments could be received retroactively, any gap means more hardship and uncertainty for Americans who have already dealt with bureaucratic delays, often draining much of their savings to stay afloat while they wait for payments to begin.

They are the likes of Earl McCarthy, a father of four who lives in South Fulton, Georgia, and has relied on unemployment since he lost his job as a sales representative for a luxurious senior community. He said he will run out of income for the second week of January if Trump doesn’t sign the bill.

McCarthy said he had already used up much of his savings while waiting five months to start receiving his unemployment benefits. After leaving weekly messages with the unemployment agency, McCarthy approached the South Fulton mayor’s office and then his state legislative representative for help.

He finally began receiving payments in November.

“The whole experience was appalling,” said McCarthy, who receives about $ 350 (NZ $ 491) a week in unemployment insurance.

“For me, I shudder to think that if I hadn’t saved anything or had an emergency fund during those five months, where would we be?” he said. “It’s going to be difficult if the president doesn’t sign this bill.”

The bill awaiting signature by Trump would also trigger a weekly federal supplement of $ 300 (NZ $ 421) to unemployment payments.

Sharon Shelton Corpening hoped that the extra help would allow her 83-year-old mother, whom she lives with, to stop using her social security payments to make her $ 1,138 (NZ $ 1,598) rent.

Corpening, which lives in the Atlanta area, had launched an independent content strategy business that was taking off before the pandemic hit, causing several of its contracts to fail.

She receives around $ 125 (NZ $ 175) a week under the pandemic unemployment program and says she won’t be able to pay her bills for about a month. This, despite her temporary job for the United States Census and as a poll worker.

“We are on the edge of the abyss,” Corpening said. “One more month, if that. Then I run out of everything. “

Trump, meanwhile, has spent his final days in the office playing golf and tweeting angrily as he refuses to accept his loss to Biden in the Nov.3 election.

On Saturday, he again lashed out at members of his own party for not joining his quest to try to overturn the election results with unsubstantiated claims of massive election fraud that have been repeatedly rejected by the courts.

“If a Democratic presidential candidate had a rigged and stolen election, with evidence of such acts at a level never seen before, Democratic senators would consider it an act of war and fight to the death,” he criticized.

He said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republicans “just want to let it go. DON’T FIGHT!”

Trump also lashed out at the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, and the FBI as he appeared to encourage his supporters to meet in Washington on January 6, the day Congress counts the Electoral College vote, despite a A similar event last month turned into violence. with several people stabbed in the streets of the capital.

In addition to freezing unemployment benefits, Trump’s inaction on the bill would lead to the expiration of eviction protections and suspend a new round of subsidies for worst-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters, along with money to help schools and vaccine distribution.

The relief is also attached to a $ 1.4 trillion (New Zealand $ 1.97 trillion) government funding bill to keep the federal government running.