President Biden’s original plan was $400/wk through August — an increase of $100, from the current level of $300/wk, which would have meant the world to millions of unemployed Americans.
Manchin has now killed that, forcing Dems to keep the benefit at the current level of $300. Manchin was still not moved.
So now, there are two plans on the table to get his vote for the entire bill: $300/wk until only July 18th - or $300/wk until the end of September. I’ll leave you to guess which one he’s going to choose.
So there will now be NO increase to UI benefits...and Manchin may only vote for an extension of the current benefits through to July 18th, leaving the unemployed in the middle of the pandemic with nothing at all, at the start of the summer.
UPDATE: There seemed to have been some confusion in the way I wrote the headline, so I re-wrote it: By “killing the UI extension”, what I meant by “extension” was that he forced the Senate to keep it at the current rate of $300/wk instead of what Biden wanted and what the House passed, which was $400/wk. I didn’t mean to imply that he killed the entire UI part of the bill. Also, it seems in the last few minutes after I posted the diary, Manchin has AGREED to the $300/wk through to September, thankfully, instead of the July option, which was also on the table and which I read at the time I posted the diary that he was choosing between, etc. Thanks for the updates in the comments, much appreciated. These things change minute by minute, so apologies for the confusion. :-)