- The president could cost unemployed workers a week of $ 300 federal unemployment benefits if relief legislation is not signed by midnight on Saturday.
- State agencies can only distribute benefits for weeks until the legislation is enacted, experts say.
- Nearly 14 million Americans are threatened with losing all unemployment benefits this weekend.
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President Donald Trump has suggested that he may reject the $ 900 billion coronavirus relief package that Congress passed earlier this week, unless lawmakers include $ 2,000 stimulus payments. He has not yet signed the law and has given little indication of which direction he will take.
The continued delay puts a wide range of federal assistance programs in jeopardy at risk as well. This can be costly for millions of Americans receiving unemployment insurance, since they were due to restart on December 26.
If Trump does not sign the federal bailout package by the end of Saturday, he would effectively cut a $ 300 week for federal unemployment benefits for the unemployed, according to Michele Evermore, a policy expert on the National Labor Law Project.
However, she cautioned that it is difficult to project without federal guidance how the delay would affect other unemployment programs.
“I’m not sure how it will be interpreted – at the very least, we missed a week out of $ 300,” Evermore told Insider. “No matter what, if he doesn’t sign, next week he’ll drop to 10 weeks of extra $ 300.”
Experts like Evermore say a two to three-week gap in unemployment benefits is inevitable, as states need time to recalibrate their computer systems to send payments.
States cannot provide benefits for weeks before relief legislation is actually passed. Depending on when it is signed, this can put employment agencies on track to restart payments during the first week of January. The $ 300 federal supplement would still end on March 14, establishing only a 10-week extension instead of 11.
Trump’s move also threatens to financially devastate millions of Americans who will enter next year. Saturday is the last day on which two federal unemployment programs distribute their payments. They are Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for concert workers and freelancers and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation for people who have exhausted state benefits.
These pair of programs established under the CARES Act in March cover 14 million people and expire this month. The president’s calendar has no public events listed for the weekend. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The president maintained his position in a tweet on Saturday morning, saying he wanted to increase stimulus payments and remove unrelated provisions from the big package of taxes and expenses.
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2020
“I just want to give big people $ 2,000 instead of the meager $ 600 that is now in the account,” tweeted Trump. “Also, stop the billions of dollars in ‘pork’.”
On Tuesday night, Trump threatened in a video posted on Twitter to derail the $ 900 billion coronavirus relief package along with the government’s spending bill that was combined to accelerate its approval. He criticized the provisions of the financing legislation, such as money for the Kennedy Center, although his budget request had allocated funds for that.
The development surprised lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who expected the president to sign the legislation, given the White House’s public statements about it. Trump had largely delegated relief talks to Congressional leaders for months.
Coronavirus relief legislation contained $ 600 for direct payments, $ 300 for weekly federal unemployment benefits, food stamp financing and rental assistance and help for small businesses, among other measures. He passed Congress by a strong bipartisan majority on Monday night, which could pave the way for the veto to be lifted.
In a bit of political maneuver, House Democrats on Thursday quickly tried to push forward a move to approve $ 2,000 stimulus checks. But House Republicans blocked it immediately. Spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi attacked the Republican movement and promised to present the legislation for another vote on Monday.
Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, a key Trump ally in Congress, suggested that the president was holding firm in his position on Saturday afternoon.
“After spending some time with President @realDonaldTrump today, I am convinced that he is more determined than ever to increase stimulus payments to $ 2,000 per person and challenge section 230 of big technology liability protection,” Graham tweeted.