Additional unemployment benefits possible

More unemployment benefits may be on the way as Democrats and Biden’s government seek a $ 1.9 billion bailout package.

The legislation increases the amount of unemployment benefits workers receive per week and extends it for several months.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, expects a bill to be signed by mid-March. Democrats intend to pass legislation using a budget measure that does not require Republican support.

The exact amount and duration of the benefits is somewhat uncertain.

It appears likely, based on various proposals, that the Democrats, according to labor experts, will increase the benefits by at least $ 400 a week and extend it until at least August.

Additional benefits offered by the $ 900 billion aid package signed by former President Donald Trump in late December are currently scheduled to end after mid-March for some workers and after April 11 for others. If there is no more relief, 11 million unemployed workers will lose their income support.

President Joe Biden proposed unemployment benefits at $ 400 a week, bringing the total amount to about $ 739 a week for the average worker per Labor Department data. He will also extend the benefits until September.

A draft proposal issued by the House Ways and Means Committee this week reflects Biden’s plan in general. However, benefits will end on August 29th.

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The $ 400 weekly subsidy would begin after March 14, according to the House proposal. It will actually increase if the current weekly supplement of $ 300 ends, meaning there would be no retroactive payments to earlier in the year.

However, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is pushing for a larger grant of $ 600 a week.

“I’m going to fight like hell to get six,” Wyden said this week.

Republicans have been strongly opposed to a $ 600 weekly benefit increase since the early days of the pandemic. The CARES law offered a $ 600 supplement for about four months until July.

Greater benefits would deter people from returning to work, they argued, thus increasing the unemployment rate and dampening economic recovery.

Many studies have found that the $ 600 supplement did not cause it in the spring and summer. In fact, it likely increased employment over the period, according to an article published by economists at the University of Chicago on Wednesday.

The economy has improved since then, which means that improved benefits may, according to some economists, be a greater deterrent for workers not to return.

“I think there is good reason to think that the discouraging effect in 2021 will be greater than in 2020,” said Peter Ganong, an economist and assistant professor at the University of Chicago.

‘But I absolutely think there should be [another unemployment supplement] in 2021, “he added due to the continuing tightness in the labor market. Benefits should be phased out as more Americans are vaccinated, he said.

Democrats do not necessarily need Republican votes in favor of a stimulus package because they want to succeed with a budget maneuver called Reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority vote to succeed.

The plan could be hampered by the House Democrats’ intention to attach a federal minimum wage of $ 15 per hour to the aid package. Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.V., came out against the proposal and one Democratic apostate could lower the odds on the bill.

“For the Senate to swallow it, I think, is a little more of a problem,” Wayne Vroman, a labor economist at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

Congress must take the side of extending benefits for longer than shorter periods, he said, to ward off the need for another possible extension.

“Whatever the end point, trying to tackle Conservative Democrats with even more stimulus will, in my opinion, be quite more difficult than it turns out to be this time,” Vroman said.

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