SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. on December 2, 2020. (Photo: Greg Nash/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
'This Is Atrocious': Trump White House Proposes Covid Relief Plan With $0 Weekly Unemployment Boost
"The president's proposal starts by cutting the unemployment insurance proposal being discussed by bipartisan members of the House and Senate. That is unacceptable."
Dec 08, 2020
The Trump White House late Tuesday tossed into the middle of ongoing coronavirus relief negotiations a $916 billion proposal that includes one-time $600 stimulus payments in the place of a weekly boost to federal unemployment benefits, a trade-off that Democratic lawmakers and economic analysts immediately rejected as unconscionable.
Offered as Democratic and Republican negotiators are racing to strike a relief deal before year's end, the White House plan would provide $40 billion for an extension of federal unemployment programs set to expire on December 26--but no increase in weekly benefits, despite the dire state of the economy.
"We gave the biggest help to those who needed it. The Republicans would send one $600 check and that's it. This is atrocious."
--Rep. Don Beyer
The Trump administration's unemployment insurance plan, put forth by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, falls well short of a bipartisan framework that calls for $180 billion in funding to boost unemployment benefits by $300 per week through March.
"The president's proposal starts by cutting the unemployment insurance proposal being discussed by bipartisan members of the House and Senate from $180 billion to $40 billion," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement. "That is unacceptable."
As a substitute for the lack of a weekly unemployment boost, the White House proposed a round of direct stimulus payments amounting to $600 per adult and $600 per child.
By contrast, the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that Congress approved in March sent one-time payments of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child to most U.S. households, on top of a $600-per-week unemployment supplement that proved remarkably successful until Republicans allowed it to lapse at the end of July.
"We gave the biggest help to those who needed it," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said of the CARES Act. "The Republicans would send one $600 check and that's it. This is atrocious."
Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, noted that "unemployed workers are going thousands in dollars in debt on paltry benefits."
"Stimulus checks are not a substitute," said Stettner, a sentiment echoed by other analysts.
With hiring slowing sharply as coronavirus infections rise nationwide, economists have warned that failure to approve a weekly unemployment boost would heighten the misery already being felt by tens of millions of people across the U.S. According to recent data, around 20 million Americans are currently receiving some form of unemployment insurance, 26 million are struggling to afford enough food, and 40 million could face eviction in the near future.
"The expiration of vital pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on December 26 will leave 12 million workers without a safety net, and over four million others will have already exhausted their benefits by this cutoff," Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post last week. "This spells trouble not only for workers and their families who are desperately trying to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table--especially with the eviction moratorium also set to expire on December 31--but also for the recovery itself."
"The longer Congress waits to act, the more permanent damage will be done to American families and the overall economy."
--Dr. Mark Paul, Dr. Adam Hersh
In addition to being dramatically less ambitious than the CARES Act, the White House's new proposal and the bipartisan plan embraced as a starting point by Democratic leaders are both a far cry from the kind of bold stimulus that experts say is needed to prevent a prolonged recession and ensure a just recovery.
A paper (pdf) authored by economists Dr. Mark Paul and Dr. Adam Hersh and released Tuesday by the Groundwork Collaborative estimates that "Congress needs to provide economic relief of between $3-4.5 trillion in the short-term in order to get American families and businesses working at their full potential."
"This would include continuing to expand eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits, renewing the $600 weekly supplemental benefits, providing fiscal aid to offset budgetary pressures on state, local, and tribal governments, renewal and better management of the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, and resources to expand Covid testing and tracing and health insurance subsidies, among other measures," the economists wrote.
"The longer Congress waits to act," they warned, "the more permanent damage will be done to American families and the overall economy, and the harder it will be for the U.S. economy to regain prosperity."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
coronavirusdemocratic partypublic healthrepublican partysteven mnuchintrumpismunemploymentus congress
The Trump White House late Tuesday tossed into the middle of ongoing coronavirus relief negotiations a $916 billion proposal that includes one-time $600 stimulus payments in the place of a weekly boost to federal unemployment benefits, a trade-off that Democratic lawmakers and economic analysts immediately rejected as unconscionable.
Offered as Democratic and Republican negotiators are racing to strike a relief deal before year's end, the White House plan would provide $40 billion for an extension of federal unemployment programs set to expire on December 26--but no increase in weekly benefits, despite the dire state of the economy.
"We gave the biggest help to those who needed it. The Republicans would send one $600 check and that's it. This is atrocious."
--Rep. Don Beyer
The Trump administration's unemployment insurance plan, put forth by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, falls well short of a bipartisan framework that calls for $180 billion in funding to boost unemployment benefits by $300 per week through March.
"The president's proposal starts by cutting the unemployment insurance proposal being discussed by bipartisan members of the House and Senate from $180 billion to $40 billion," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement. "That is unacceptable."
As a substitute for the lack of a weekly unemployment boost, the White House proposed a round of direct stimulus payments amounting to $600 per adult and $600 per child.
By contrast, the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that Congress approved in March sent one-time payments of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child to most U.S. households, on top of a $600-per-week unemployment supplement that proved remarkably successful until Republicans allowed it to lapse at the end of July.
"We gave the biggest help to those who needed it," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said of the CARES Act. "The Republicans would send one $600 check and that's it. This is atrocious."
Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, noted that "unemployed workers are going thousands in dollars in debt on paltry benefits."
"Stimulus checks are not a substitute," said Stettner, a sentiment echoed by other analysts.
With hiring slowing sharply as coronavirus infections rise nationwide, economists have warned that failure to approve a weekly unemployment boost would heighten the misery already being felt by tens of millions of people across the U.S. According to recent data, around 20 million Americans are currently receiving some form of unemployment insurance, 26 million are struggling to afford enough food, and 40 million could face eviction in the near future.
"The expiration of vital pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on December 26 will leave 12 million workers without a safety net, and over four million others will have already exhausted their benefits by this cutoff," Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post last week. "This spells trouble not only for workers and their families who are desperately trying to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table--especially with the eviction moratorium also set to expire on December 31--but also for the recovery itself."
"The longer Congress waits to act, the more permanent damage will be done to American families and the overall economy."
--Dr. Mark Paul, Dr. Adam Hersh
In addition to being dramatically less ambitious than the CARES Act, the White House's new proposal and the bipartisan plan embraced as a starting point by Democratic leaders are both a far cry from the kind of bold stimulus that experts say is needed to prevent a prolonged recession and ensure a just recovery.
A paper (pdf) authored by economists Dr. Mark Paul and Dr. Adam Hersh and released Tuesday by the Groundwork Collaborative estimates that "Congress needs to provide economic relief of between $3-4.5 trillion in the short-term in order to get American families and businesses working at their full potential."
"This would include continuing to expand eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits, renewing the $600 weekly supplemental benefits, providing fiscal aid to offset budgetary pressures on state, local, and tribal governments, renewal and better management of the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, and resources to expand Covid testing and tracing and health insurance subsidies, among other measures," the economists wrote.
"The longer Congress waits to act," they warned, "the more permanent damage will be done to American families and the overall economy, and the harder it will be for the U.S. economy to regain prosperity."
The Trump White House late Tuesday tossed into the middle of ongoing coronavirus relief negotiations a $916 billion proposal that includes one-time $600 stimulus payments in the place of a weekly boost to federal unemployment benefits, a trade-off that Democratic lawmakers and economic analysts immediately rejected as unconscionable.
Offered as Democratic and Republican negotiators are racing to strike a relief deal before year's end, the White House plan would provide $40 billion for an extension of federal unemployment programs set to expire on December 26--but no increase in weekly benefits, despite the dire state of the economy.
"We gave the biggest help to those who needed it. The Republicans would send one $600 check and that's it. This is atrocious."
--Rep. Don Beyer
The Trump administration's unemployment insurance plan, put forth by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, falls well short of a bipartisan framework that calls for $180 billion in funding to boost unemployment benefits by $300 per week through March.
"The president's proposal starts by cutting the unemployment insurance proposal being discussed by bipartisan members of the House and Senate from $180 billion to $40 billion," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement. "That is unacceptable."
As a substitute for the lack of a weekly unemployment boost, the White House proposed a round of direct stimulus payments amounting to $600 per adult and $600 per child.
By contrast, the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that Congress approved in March sent one-time payments of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child to most U.S. households, on top of a $600-per-week unemployment supplement that proved remarkably successful until Republicans allowed it to lapse at the end of July.
"We gave the biggest help to those who needed it," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said of the CARES Act. "The Republicans would send one $600 check and that's it. This is atrocious."
Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, noted that "unemployed workers are going thousands in dollars in debt on paltry benefits."
"Stimulus checks are not a substitute," said Stettner, a sentiment echoed by other analysts.
With hiring slowing sharply as coronavirus infections rise nationwide, economists have warned that failure to approve a weekly unemployment boost would heighten the misery already being felt by tens of millions of people across the U.S. According to recent data, around 20 million Americans are currently receiving some form of unemployment insurance, 26 million are struggling to afford enough food, and 40 million could face eviction in the near future.
"The expiration of vital pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on December 26 will leave 12 million workers without a safety net, and over four million others will have already exhausted their benefits by this cutoff," Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post last week. "This spells trouble not only for workers and their families who are desperately trying to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table--especially with the eviction moratorium also set to expire on December 31--but also for the recovery itself."
"The longer Congress waits to act, the more permanent damage will be done to American families and the overall economy."
--Dr. Mark Paul, Dr. Adam Hersh
In addition to being dramatically less ambitious than the CARES Act, the White House's new proposal and the bipartisan plan embraced as a starting point by Democratic leaders are both a far cry from the kind of bold stimulus that experts say is needed to prevent a prolonged recession and ensure a just recovery.
A paper (pdf) authored by economists Dr. Mark Paul and Dr. Adam Hersh and released Tuesday by the Groundwork Collaborative estimates that "Congress needs to provide economic relief of between $3-4.5 trillion in the short-term in order to get American families and businesses working at their full potential."
"This would include continuing to expand eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits, renewing the $600 weekly supplemental benefits, providing fiscal aid to offset budgetary pressures on state, local, and tribal governments, renewal and better management of the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, and resources to expand Covid testing and tracing and health insurance subsidies, among other measures," the economists wrote.
"The longer Congress waits to act," they warned, "the more permanent damage will be done to American families and the overall economy, and the harder it will be for the U.S. economy to regain prosperity."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.