Expanded unemployment benefits end in late July. Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan wants to extend them through the rest of the year.
Even as some states start reopening, there’s little sign the coronavirus pandemic — or most of its adverse economic effects — will end anytime soon. But the $600-per-week lifeline the federal government extended to newly laid-off Americans will.
The aim of that money is two-fold: to keep millions of newly jobless Americans and their dependents financially afloat in a time of great economic uncertainty, and to keep them at home and not potentially getting exposed to the coronavirus at work. But these expanded benefits will run out in late July, after which Americans will have to fall back on smaller amounts of state benefits.
A new bill introduced by Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) would extend the amount of time people who are unemployed due to the coronavirus can stay on the federal government’s expanded unemployment insurance until December 31, 2020.
“We can’t have these short-term interventions for what will be a long-term problem,” Kildee told Vox in a recent interview. “We need to scale the response to the actual crisis…”
To read the entire article from Vox, click https://www.vox.com/2020/5/1/21241850/expanded-unemployment-insurance-benefits-december
