- The $ 600 weekly federal unemployment benefit will expire on Friday without an agreement between Congress and the Trump administration.
- “We are not close to a deal,” Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, told reporters Wednesday, the New York Times reported.
- Republicans want to reduce the pandemic-related benefit to $ 200 a week, but Democrats want the total amount to run until January 2021.
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Democrats and the Trump administration “are not close to a deal” on the extension of the $ 600 a week federal unemployment benefit, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters on Wednesday.
The $ 600 benefit was approved by Congress in March as part of the Coronavirus Economic Relief and Relief Act (CARES Act) to help those affected by the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It means that the improved unemployment insurance provisions will expire,” Meadows said, according to The New York Times. That means more than 17 million unemployed Americans will stop receiving the money as of Friday.
Republicans have been pushing to reduce the emergency benefit to $ 200 a week, alleging that the larger number has discouraged beneficiaries from returning to work during the height of a pandemic.
However, a new study by Yale University economists found “no evidence that more generous benefits discouraged work either at the start of the expansion or when companies sought to return to business over time.”
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