Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet lapsed overnight Saturday as President Donald Trump refuses to sign a $900 billion coronavirus relief deal struck last week by Congress, which would extend programs created in March to help ease the economic pain caused by the pandemic.
Trump’s refusal to sign the bipartisan package as he demands larger COVID relief checks and complains about “pork” spending could also force a federal government shutdown when money runs out at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday in the middle of a pandemic.
On Sunday evening, Trump offered the vaguest of updates, tweeting, “Good news on Covid Relief Bill. Information to follow!” The White House did not respond to questions from The Associated Press elaborating on what he meant.
“It’s a chess game and we are pawns,” said Lanetris Haines, a self-employed single mother of three in South Bend, Indiana, who stands to lose her $129 weekly jobless benefit unless Trump signs the package into law or succeeds in his improbable quest for changes.
The standoff comes at a perilous time, as the novel coronavirus continue to rage across the country and around the world. The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has topped 80 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. is by far the leader among nations in cases of coronavirus illness, reporting over 18.8 million active cases nationwide, with a death toll of over 330,000 Americans.
Millions more jobless Americans are currently collecting checks under two federal programs that were created in March to ease the economic pain inflicted by the pandemic. Those programs had been set to expire the day after Christmas. On Monday, Congress agreed to extend them as part of a $900 billion pandemic rescue package.
The day after Congress passed the relief measure, which was paired with a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending measure to fund the government, Trump slammed the bill, taking particular issue with the low amount of money allocated as direct payments to Americans.
“I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple," Trump said in a Tuesday night video released on social media. "I am also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package.”
The bipartisan compromise had been considered a done deal and had won sweeping approval in the House and Senate this week after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it. If he refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4 trillion government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the most dire stretch of the pandemic.
“Made many calls and had meetings at Trump International in Palm Beach, Florida. Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he tweeted after leaving the golf course Friday afternoon. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”
Graham tweeted Friday night that Trump was still intent on getting changes in yearend legislation before signing it, noting that after spending time with the president, "I am convinced he is more determined than ever to increase stimulus payments to $2000 per person and challenge Section 230 big tech liability protection.” he said in his tweet “Both are reasonable demands, and I hope Congress is listening. The biggest winner would be the American people.”
In addition to the COVID aid, Graham was referring to another Trump priority: to get a repeal of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, a law that protects online platforms from liability for content posted by users.
Trump’s decision to attack the COVID bill has been seen, at least in part, as political punishment for what he considers insufficient backing by congressional Republicans of his campaign to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election with unfounded claims of voter fraud.
In a statement released Saturday, President-elect Joe Biden urged Trump to sign the bill, warning of "devastating consequences" if he does not take action.
"Today, about 10 million Americans will lose unemployment insurance benefits. In just a few days, government funding will expire, putting vital services and paychecks for military personnel at risk," Biden wrote. "In less than a week, a moratorium on evictions expires, putting millions at risk of being forced from their homes over the holidays."
"Delay means more small businesses won’t survive this dark winter because they lack access to the lifeline they need, and Americans face further delays in getting the direct payments they deserve as quickly as possible to help deal with the economic devastation caused by COVID-19," Biden added.
"This bill is critical," Biden wrote. "It needs to be signed into law now."
Biden accused Trump of an “abdication of responsibility” that has “devastating consequences.”
“I’ve been talking to people who are scared they’re going to be kicked out from their homes, during the Christmas holidays, and still might be if we don’t sign this bill,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat.
Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, has calculated that 11 million people would lose aid from the programs immediately without additional relief; millions more would exhaust other unemployment benefits within weeks.
Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, said the number may be closer to 14 million because joblessness has spiked since Thanksgiving.
“All these folks and their families will suffer if Trump doesn’t sign the damn bill,” Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, tweeted Wednesday.
How and when people are affected by the lapse depends on the state they live in, the program they are relying on and when they applied for benefits. In some states, people on regular unemployment insurance could continue to receive payments under a program that extends benefits when the jobless rate surpasses a certain threshold, Stettner said.
About 9.5 million people, however, rely on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program that expires altogether Saturday. That program made unemployment insurance available to freelancers, gig workers and others who are normally not eligible. After receiving their last checks, those recipients will not be able to file for more aid after Saturday, Stettner said.
While payments could be received retroactively, any gap means more hardship and uncertainty for Americans who have already grappled with bureaucratic delays, often depleting much of their savings to stay afloat while waiting for payments to kick in.
They are people like Earl McCarthy, a father of four who lives in South Fulton, Georgia, and has been relying on unemployment since losing his job as a sales representative for a luxury senior living community. He said he will be left with no income by the second week of January if Trump fails to sign the bill.
McCarthy said he already burned through much of his savings as he waited five months to begin receiving his unemployment benefits. After leaving weekly messages with the unemployment agency, McCarthy reached out to the South Fulton mayor’s office, then to his state legislative representative to ask for help. He finally started getting payments in November.
“The entire experience was horrifying,” said McCarthy, who is receiving about $350 a week in unemployment insurance.
“For me, I shudder to think if I had not saved anything or had an emergency fund through those five months, where would we have been?” he said. “It’s going to be difficult if the president doesn’t sign this bill.”
The supplemental federal jobless benefit in Congress’ new measure has been set at $300 a week – only half the amount provided in March – and will expire in 11 weeks. A separate benefits program for jobless people who have exhausted their regular state aid and another benefits program for self-employed and gig workers will also be extended only until early spring, well before the economy will likely have fully recovered.
The number of jobless people who are collecting aid from one of the two federal extended-benefit programs – the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which offers coverage to gig workers and others who don’t qualify for traditional benefits – rose by nearly 27,000 to 9.3 million in the week that ended Dec. 5.
The number of people receiving aid under the second program – the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which provides federal jobless benefits to people who have exhausted their state aid – fell by nearly 8,200 to 4.8 million.
All told, 20.4 million people are now receiving some type of unemployment benefits. (Figures for the two pandemic-related programs aren’t adjusted for seasonal variations.)
Trump has been spending his final days in office golfing and angrily tweeting 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 failing to join his quest to try to overturn the results of the election with baseless claims of mass voter fraud that have been repeatedly rejected by the courts.
“If a Democrat Presidential Candidate had an Election Rigged & Stolen, with proof of such acts at a level never seen before, the Democrat Senators would consider it an act of war, and fight to the death,” he railed. He said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republicans “just want to let it pass. NO FIGHT!”
Trump also lashed out at the Supreme Court, the Justice Department and the FBI as he seemed to encourage his supporters to gather in Washington on Jan. 6, the day Congress tallies the Electoral College vote — even though a similar event last month devolved into violence, with multiple people being stabbed in the capital’s streets.
In addition to freezing unemployment benefits, Trump’s lack of action on the bill would lead to the expiration of eviction protections and put on hold a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters, along with money to help schools and vaccine distribution.
Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have been trying to salvage the year-end legislation to try to prevent a shutdown. Democrats will call House lawmakers back to Washington for a vote Monday on Trump’s $2,000 proposal, though it would probably die in the Republican-controlled Senate. They are also considering a vote Monday on a stop-gap measure at least to avert a federal shutdown and keep the government running until Democrat Joe Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20.
A separate funding bill is also in jeopardy after Trump refused to sign the National Defense Authorization Act Wednesday evening, legislation that affirms 3% pay raises for U.S. troops and authorizes more than $740 billion in military programs and construction.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.