While tens of millions are still unemployed, their help from DC is going away

Remember when President Trump reacted to the end of the $600 add-on for unemployment benefits by giving an "executive order" allowing for a $400$300 add-on? Well, that's already coming to an end, even before a majority of states have made one payment.

More than a month after Mr. Trump signed the order, only 17 states are currently paying out the benefits, according to UnemploymentPUA.com, which tracks jobless benefits. FEMA said that 48 states, Guam and the District of Columbia have been approved for the payments. South Dakota declined to accept the funds, with its governor saying that most jobs lost during the pandemic have been recovered. Nevada is the sole state awaiting FEMA approval.

But it's clear that even six weeks of $300 payments will go quickly. Two states, Montana and Texas, have already exhausted their six weeks of funding.... 

Mr. Trump is funding the supplementary unemployment benefits through FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund, which had $44 billion in available funds. The agency on Thursday said that to date it has distributed $30 billion through the LWA program. September 10 is the final day for states and territories to apply for assistance, according to FEMA.

Wisconsin is among the states that applied for the $300 add-on, but no unemployed Wisconsinites have gotten it yet. While the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development says that benefits will be applied retroactively all the way back to August 1 (when the $600 add-on went away), DWD says that it'll likely be late October until its system is able to be completely programmed for Lost Wages Assistance and that extra $300/week gets sent out. And it looks like there won't be any additional unemployment benefits to be given out after the $44 billion taken from FEMA runs out. That's because stimulus negotiations have collapsed in DC, after the GOP-run Senate refused to go along with the $3 trillion that the House agreed to in May, and couldn't even get a fraction of that through the upper chamber today.

The measure fell short of the 60 votes needed on a procedural step to move toward passage. All Democrats present, and one Republican — Rand Paul of Kentucky — opposed it in a 52-47 vote. The nearly unanimous vote for the GOP followed weeks of disagreements within the Republican caucus about whether to pass any more aid at all. 

The legislation would have reinstated enhanced federal unemployment insurance at a rate of $300 per week, half of the $600 weekly payment that expired at the end of July. It also would have authorized new small business loans and put money toward schools and into Covid-19 testing, treatment and vaccines. 

The measure did not include a second $1,200 direct payment to individuals. It also lacked new relief for cash-strapped state and local governments or money for rental and mortgage assistance and food aid — all priorities for Democrats.

                          Sometimes you don't need a gun to hurt people. 

  The lack of help for the unemployed is going to be a big hit to a lot of Americans, as evidenced by today's weekly report on unemployment claims, which shows that we are still seeing people getting laid off at unprecedented levels.

In the week ending September 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 884,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 3,000 from 881,000 to 884,000. The 4-week moving average was 970,750, a decrease of 21,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 750 from 991,750 to 992,500. 

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment ratewas 9.2 percent for the week ending August 29, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending August 29 was 13,385,000, an increase of 93,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 38,000 from 13,254,000 to 13,292,000. The 4-week moving average was 13,982,000, a decrease of 523,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 9,500 from 14,496,250 to 14,505,750.

In addition, the PUA program for "gig workers" and others who don't get traditional unemployment is being increasingly utilized, to the point that more people were getting PUA than regular unemployment by late August.

And with the August 22 data, the PUA program--which didn't exist at all before the CARES Act in March--is now officially larger than regular state unemployment insurance. https://t.co/eUSA5qKX2t pic.twitter.com/vrSSIJ5Ii9

— Ernie Tedeschi (@ernietedeschi) September 10, 2020

This means that five-and-half months after COVID-19 first started having a serious affect on the labor market, we still were seeing nearly 30 million Americans getting some kind of unemployment benefit.

Many of those people have already been dropped off of the $600-a-week add-on for their benefits, and even though they might be getting their $300-a-week payments from FEMA soon (if they haven't already), they shouldn't expect that the Feds are going to help them stay afloat as the weather gets colder. And that is a scary situation not just for tens of millions of people out of work, but for the entire economy as a whole.

It doesn't have to be this way. We choose it to be this way in America.

French government to continue paying up to 84% of salaries for furloughed workers "until next summer" due to prolonged economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. https://t.co/EBe1yFEcY7 pic.twitter.com/fQVqCtSND5

— ABC News (@ABC) September 10, 2020