President Donald Trump on Sunday backed off his veto threat and signed the $900 billion stimulus bill—a move that should immediately benefit millions of unemployed Americans, even if its $600 checks have been roundly criticized as insufficient relief for the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.
For starters, the package will bring back weekly enhanced federal unemployment benefits for the more than 19 million Americans still on unemployment benefit rolls. These enhanced benefits will pay out $300 per week, on top of state benefits, for up to 11 weeks. That’s down from the $600 weekly payment that the CARES Act sent jobless Americans through late July.
The stimulus package will also extend pandemic unemployment benefits, which currently provide benefits to around 14 million jobless Americans. Those out-of-work Americans, covered by programs like Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), would have lost their benefits entirely had the stimulus bill not … Read the rest