Beneficiaries of the extra $600 in weekly benefits that unemployed Americans are receiving as part of the $2 trillion CARES Act may not be the only ones who lose out if lawmakers don’t extend or replace the extra benefits by the July 31 deadline.
Less money to spend in stores and online could translate into more layoffs on top of the nearly 30 million Americans who have been laid off amid the pandemic, some economists say.
“Letting the $600 expire would be the economic equivalent of reopening the economy too soon,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy organization focused on workers’ rights.
“I really worry about what happens to people getting benefits now who might lose them, but also the person next door who’s been able to keep their hardware store open because of them.”
Click here to read the whole story from Elisabeth Buchwald on MarketWatch.com.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that those benefits won’t go away completely.
He said he was against the original decision to offer an additional $600 in federal benefits to unemployed Americans on top of their state benefits, adding that “it still worked out well because it gave people a lifeline.”
