Americans desperately need it in light of the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing recession as it burns. One such relief measure is to reduce unemployment – something unemployed workers were involved in earlier this year under the CARES Act.
Signed into law in March, the CARES law allowed dismissed workers to receive an extra $ 600 a week in their unemployment benefits, and it was this huge impetus that enabled so many unemployed people to fully replace and recover their lost wages. keep up with their accounts. But the CARES Act only asked for this boost through July 31, which means it has now expired. And so far, lawmakers have failed to reach an agreement on a follow-up boost.
Democratic lawmakers really want to see that extra $ 600 a week extended by the end of the year. But Republican lawmakers insist that an extra $ 600 a week is too high, and that retaining it will give workers an incentive to return to a job if that opportunity becomes available. As such, instead of September, they proposed a $ 200 weekly incentive for unemployment, after which benefits would replace 70% of workers’ lost wages.
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Since both sides do not seem to be able to agree on unemployment – a key stumbling block to hammering out a second, much-anticipated stimulus action – President Trump has decided to take matters into his own hands by signing several executive actions, one designed to help unemployed workers to give extra $ 400 per week in benefits. But unemployed workers should not have to worry about that yet.
The problem with President Trump’s new order
The fact that the president is taking action to help the unemployed is in theory a good thing. But here’s the problem: States must agree to conclude a financial agreement with the federal government for residents to receive this new impetus of unemployment, and they must also raise part of the tab – 25%, to be exact . But many states do not have that kind of money, nor were they given any heads-up about what needs to be done. If a particular state does not have those funds and does not enter into an agreement with the federal government, then its residents will not be guaranteed a rise in unemployment (although the same unemployed workers will still entitled to the standard unemployment benefits they would otherwise receive).
And to be clear, from now on it will not be possible for anyone to simply receive the $ 300 per week for which the federal government would be responsible. First, unemployed people should be eligible for the $ 100 help from their state, and if that does not happen, they are completely happy.
As such, although the president’s executive action may have come from a place to help unemployed workers, the reality is that it may end up ineffective. And sadly, that leaves millions of workers in the same difficult position they have been in since their $ 600 weekly impulse ran out.
